From refugee to homeless: The first of how many?

I wasn’t surprised to learn that there’s a homeless refugee in Greensboro. But I am surprised to hear that he’s the first.

Soe Win, 56, arrived in 2007 to be resettled by Lutheran Family Services. Now destitute and suffering from a breakdown, he arrived in mid-November at the homeless day center on East Bessemer Avenue.

There, volunteer social workers contacted Lutheran Family Services, but no services were available. Win is now staying at Urban Ministry’s Weaver House until the winter emergency shelters open at local churches next month.

“It may be the first case like this,” State Refugee Coordinator Marlene Myers said this week, “but it won’t be the last.”

» read all of “First a refugee, now homeless” at News-Record.com

This is a heartbreaking story — a political refugee, homeless, mentally ill, alone. And beyond that, the larger story of continuing refugee resettlement in the midst of high unemployment rates and an economic recession.

The first homeless refugee. “And it won’t be the last.”