By John Ryan
(KUOW) Relief organizations in the Seattle area are having to get creative to find housing for an expected influx of refugees from Afghanistan.
With affordable housing in scarce supply, they’re asking King County to make some county-owned hotels available for arriving refugees.
Relief organizations in the Seattle area are having to get creative to find housing for an expected influx of refugees from Afghanistan.
With affordable housing in scarce supply, they’re asking King County to make some county-owned hotels available for arriving refugees.
“I’m saying this as an Afghan American with family in Kabul right now trying to evacuate,” said Aneelah Afzali with the Muslim Association of Puget Sound. “The very least we can do is welcome with open arms the few who actually make it over here and integrate them into our society.”
Afzali’s group and others say some hotels purchased by King County could help meet an urgent demand for people who fled a war zone with little more than the clothes on their backs.
“We see them also as homeless because when they get here, get off the airplane, they don’t have a place to stay, and so they fit under that same definition,” said Medard Ngueita with World Relief Seattle.
