Why are refugees/torture victims here?
Thousands of refugees — some of them torture survivors — live in the Tampa Bay area. Patti Grogan, policy manager for refugee services with the Florida Department of Children and Families, gave several reasons for the area’s popularity. Key, she said, is its strong refugee resettlement agencies: Lutheran Services, Catholic Charities, World Relief and Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services. Ms. Grogan added that newcomers like to move to communities where their families and neighbors have already settled. Climate counts, too. At the Tampa Bay center, clients include victims from as far back as the Holocaust of World War II to more recent arrivals from conflict-ravaged areas such as Vietnam, Russia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Burma and India. Currently, though, the majority of the center’s clients come from the former Yugoslavia.
