Edited and fact-checked by Lorie Hearn
Photos by Megan Wood
The inside of Mostafa Inezan’s two-bedroom apartment in El Cajon was a standard white-walled, brown-carpeted space — except for the hardwood dining area. It was void of knicknacks or family photos, but full of Inezan’s five young sons roughhousing one sunny afternoon. The youngest, a toddler, occasionally waddled around in his unsnapped onesie and tugged at the buttons on his mother’s dress.
San Diego’s International Rescue Committee — one of four resettlement agencies in the region — found the family’s apartment last year. The organization, an affiliate of the international nonprofit that provides safe harbor for conflict- and disaster-displaced immigrants, uses federal funds to arrange housing and basic needs for refugees during their first three months.
This is the first in an ongoing series about the struggles refugees face when they make San Diego County their home. The series is a collaboration of reporters, photographers, videographers and editors at inewsource, KPBS and the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University. Why this topic? Since 2009, more than 23,000 refugees have settled in the county, more than any other region in California.
However, about six months after the Inezan family arrived in San Diego, they were faced with leaving their apartment because seven was too many people for the space, a management company representative told KPBS. The family had few prospects for a new home.
“I don’t know anyone, first of all,” Inezan said in Arabic through a translator. “And I am blind, I don’t see. Who would give us a house?”
Inezan’s situation is partly the consequence of bad timing. He arrived in August, during San Diego’s largest refugee influx since 2012. This wave forced the IRC to resettle a surge of limited-income families in one of the nation’s toughest rental markets.

Three other Syrian families interviewed by KPBS in a five-month investigation allege IRC staff encouraged them to falsely declare their family’s size on rental forms because larger apartments were too costly. Inezan and his family were forced to vacate because his family wasn’t accurately documented on the lease. The other families could be asked to leave their homes, too.
He said it is the agency’s policy to list all occupants on a lease.
The plight of the families interviewed by KPBS puts in stark relief the difficulties refugees have when beginning a new life in the expensive but welcoming region of San Diego.
‘What is the agency supposed to do?’
San Diego received more refugees last fiscal year than any other region, a U.S. State Department official confirmed. County data show about an average of 250 refugee arrivals per month in fiscal year 2016, until last August when that number roughly tripled. September saw even more.
This left the IRC “very crunched for a period of a couple months,” then-Deputy Director of Programs Erica Bouris told KPBS in an interview about the surge of refugees coming to San Diego. Some families lived in motel rooms for weeks while caseworkers searched for housing, she said.

Inezan said he and his family avoided this — they arrived at the beginning of the surge and were shuttled directly to their two-bedroom apartment in August. He said when it came time to sign his lease, he told both the IRC-provided translator and an on-site complex manager that his family was seven people. Still, only six names appeared on the lease. IRC’s Murphy said he could not pinpoint how the error occurred.
An apartment is expected to be “decent, safe and sanitary” and adhere to limits on capacity, according to a copy of the agreement between resettlement agencies and the federal government. Housing guidelines suggest two people to each bedroom and up to two more in the living area. Families should also be able to handle monthly rent on their own — “to the extent possible” — after a resettlement period that can last up to 90 days.
Agencies receive $2,075 per refugee, about half of which goes to the agency’s overhead costs, and the rest goes to cover rent and expenses, such as furniture, household items, clothing, food and — in some circumstances — a motel bill. The government expects funds to be left over so refugees can have cash after the resettlement agency’s support period ends.
University of Chicago lecturer Jessica Darrow, who has done several research papers and presentations on refugee resettlement, said the standards-to-resources ratio puts caseworkers in a tight spot when searching for housing, especially with larger families who require more space.

She referred to when the per-refugee stipend for the client and the agency was $900. Eric Schwartz was assistant secretary for the U.S. Bureau of Population, Refugee and Migration at the time and traveled around the country to witness firsthand what resettlement looked like.
“It was heartbreaking to hear the stories,” Schwartz told The Washington Post in August 2010.
Schwartz was able to get approval to double the allotment to $1,800.
‘We just wanted to leave’

The family had been searching for a place to go since Syria’s war broke out in 2011. Abdullah said they hopscotched around Syria, encountering ISIS three times, before leaving the country entirely.
When the IRC found their current two-bedroom home, Abdullah said he thought the place near the Arabic markets and his children’s school was ideal for his family of eight. It wasn’t. According to federal housing guidelines, his family’s size called for at least a three-bedroom.
Abdullah said he pushed back.
“They let us in on a lie, so are we going to spend our whole lives living in a lie?” he told KPBS. “At any moment, any minute, they can kick us out because of this lie. This is a serious matter.”
The two-bedroom apartment would be cheaper, he said he was told, so he signed. He said he renewed the lease without adjusting the number of occupants because he didn’t want to alert his manager to his family’s true size. He said he still worries they’ll be asked to leave.
The story is similar for Daliya Ali, who said she spent three weeks in the same motel before the IRC found a home for her family of eight. Ali said she knew she shouldn’t have accepted the lease listing only six people because an overseas orientation warned against signing false documents, but she felt she had little choice.

This echoes what Mahmoud Alibrahim claims an IRC staff member told him. He said the agency placed his family of seven in a two-bedroom home after 25 days in the motel.
“I have not had any clear answers,” De Los Rios told KPBS in early March.
‘There is a lot of anti-refugee media out there’
“This is the first time I’ve heard about it,” he said. (In a follow-up call, De Los Rios maintained she specifically addressed the issue.)
Murphy said he wasn’t sure how the oversight could have occurred, but he would look into it. Eight days later, he responded to a follow-up email.
“Yes, I did look at this file and there is no reason that there were only six names on the lease. I have no idea why it happened,” he wrote.
KPBS spoke with the Abdullah, Ali and Alibrahim families after its initial interview with the IRC.
Murphy said caseworkers denied they instructed refugees to conceal their family’s size. It’s the agency’s policy to list all occupants on rental documents, he said, and suggested refugees address any “oversight” with their property managers.
Alibrahim said his son has since moved out, so his lease is now accurate, and he provided a copy to KPBS. The Abdullah and Ali families say they do not want to alert their property managers to their family’s true size for fear of being asked to leave. The families understood going public could expose their circumstances, but said they wanted their stories told in the hope that it would lead to a better living situation.
Ali said she found her family of eight an affordable three-bedroom apartment, but the complex would not allow more than seven to move in. The complex has not returned a KPBS request for comment.

In an email, IRC’s national office said it is looking into the allegations.
“Our mission is to best support refugees as they rebuild their lives and become part of their communities. Our relationships with community partners, including housing entities, helps lay a groundwork and foundation of trust, which our clients build on as they restart their lives,” Mireille Cronin Mather, the IRC’s regional director of U.S. programs, said in a written statement. “We are concerned about these reports and are investigating the situation to establish the facts. The IRC is deeply committed to delivering the best possible resettlement experience for our clients and take our responsibilities in doing so seriously.”
A U.S. Department of State official said the agency also plans to look into the claims.
A new home

The day KPBS spoke with Mostafa Inezan and his family, Crimi received an important phone call. A three-bedroom was available in the family’s price range and it was near the home of a friend.
Crimi and Abi-Samra ushered the family out of the home to fill out an application. They moved in the next month. All seven family members are named on the lease.