Tacoma Community House a 'mini United Nations'

Tony Famada came to Tacoma Community House a year ago looking for help.

The Cuban-born immigrant needed to apply for permanent residency in the United States. He spoke little English. He had no job.

“Today I have an interview (for a job),” he said last week as he sat with Delia Garcia, a job counselor at the Hilltop-based agency. He flashed a big smile.

Famada, 32, already had gotten help getting his permanent residency and the green card that allows him to work. He’d spent the past year attending English language classes – up to 12 hours a week.

“Now I’m ready to do something,” he said.

Famada is one of thousands of immigrants who have found opportunity at Tacoma Community House since Methodist missionaries opened it in 1910 as a settlement house.

Starting with helping the 4,000 Italian immigrants and their children living in Tacoma at the time, the agency now works with immigrants and refugees from more than 80 countries.

In the past decade, Community House has delivered English and education services to 13,000 people, provided immigration and bilingual assistance to some 12,000 immigrants and their families and helped nearly 7,500 with employment training.

Its efforts to integrate immigrants into the community were honored last week in Washington, D.C., by the Migration Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank dedicated to studying migration of people worldwide.

Community House was named one of four winners of the Second Annual E Pluribus Unum Prizes. About 350 programs applied this year. Executive Director Liz Dunbar accepted the prize Tuesday and the $50,000 check that goes with it.

Community House’s experience and “a willingness to change and adapt to meet the needs of the region’s most recent arrivals” makes it a national model, Michael Fix, senior vice president at the Migration Policy Institute, said in announcing the awards.

Dunbar said the secret to the agency’s success is three-fold: having a bilingual, multicultural staff, focusing on English language classes as the key survival skill and creating a one-stop site for immigrant community needs.

Awards and recognition are great, she said in an interview, but not so the agency can brag but because they “help bring attention to the people we serve.”

$4.7 MILLION BUDGET

Candis Carbone started working for Community House in 1975. An influx of Asian immigrants from the Vietnam War had begun two years earlier.

Carbone, now the agency’s employment program director, said working at Community House is like watching the world’s history parade by as waves of immigrants come to the area, often reflecting what is happening elsewhere in the world.

“This is a mini-United Nations,” she said.

As the Vietnam War wound down, Carbone said the agency refocused its programs on adult immigrants from Asia because there were no services for them in Pierce County.

Programs and staff members grew as the number of immigrants increased. The budget in 1975 was $700,000; today it is $4.7 million, with most coming from government contracts.

By 1987, the community’s need and the agency programs required more space. With a $1 million grant from the United Methodist Women, Community House built a new facility facing South L and 13th streets.

Dunbar took over as head of the agency a year ago after being involved with Community House and immigrant issues for many years. She credits the agency’s success to continually assessing immigrants’ needs and adapting services to meet them.

For instance, in 1995, a computer lab was equipped with specialized software to help immigrants learn English. The next year, an immigration services department was opened to provide free citizenship classes and immigration assistance.

Today, staff members speak nine languages and Community House’s language bank has more than 100 certified interpreters who speak more than 30 languages.

Bilingual social services help clients with housing, transportation and child care The agency also has a child care center for its clients. Bilingual support groups help immigrant women who are victims of domestic violence.

Over the years the agency has become partners with 450 organizations and businesses.

In 2002, Community House opened the Refugee and Immigrant Family Program with Swan Creek Library in East Tacoma, one of Tacoma’s most diverse neighborhoods. It offers the same one-stop services as the main location.

Community House has helped form organizations that assist immigrants, such as Centro Latina, Associated Ministries, the Tacoma Urban Alliance and the Asian American Alliance.

While adult immigrants are the agency’s main focus, Dunbar said, it offers youths and American-born adults education, mentoring and job placement services.

COLLEGE-LEVEL ENGLISH

The world comes to the English language classes at Community House. Students in one class can hail from Iraq, Russia, Samoa, Puerto Rico, Kenya, China. When they speak, accents color their English.

Instructors do not know all the languages of their students, so they teach in English and use pictures and role playing, Dunbar said.

“The students are taught how to write resumes, to make change at the grocery store,” she said. “They are very practical lessons. We don’t focus a lot on the grammar.”

With six levels of English taught, she said, by the time students get through the final level they are ready to manage the English in a college class.

Leonid Damian, 47, is at Level 5. He came to the United States from Moldova in 2003 and the next year arrived in Tacoma.

“My English was zero,” he said during a brief break in his class.

He spent a year learning enough English to get a job. Out of work because of the recession, Damian came back to class to better his English and his family’s future.

Last Tuesday he also became an American citizen.

“My plan is to stay here,” said Damian, who lives with his wife and three children in a home built by Habitat for Humanity.

The sour economy has made job hunting difficult for immigrants, and someone with limited English skills isn’t going to be the first hired, Dunbar said.

“But we find that immigrants are by definition survivors,” she said. “They are hardworking people who want to improve their lives for themselves and their families. They are not there looking for a handout.”

The demand for services in Pierce County is great.

“We have waiting list for every program we offer,” she said, adding the agency won’t have trouble figuring out how to spend its $50,000 in prize money.

Mike Archbold: 253-597-8692
mike.archbold@thenewstribune.com