The U.S. government is giving the ethnic Albanians from Kosovo refugee status, which allows them to work and gain access to some social services. The refugees will be placed with relatives, host families, or in houses and apartments arranged by the agencies. Some will live in Albanian communities in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Others will be sent to live in other states where Americans have offered to help, said Don Hammond, director of World Relief Refugee Services. His friends have already started offering him bedding and kitchen items to help set up housekeeping for prospective arrivals from Kosovo.
Some refugees eventually go home.
Others like life in Des Moines and stay, Lambert said, recalling how he helped two Bosnian teens get their first jobs bagging groceries. Still, he has no second thoughts about housing a family from Kosovo in the finished basement of his ranch-style house, just southwest of Kansas City. It has a shower, bathroom and a kitchen that has been used for canning. Thinking aloud, Hoffman supposes they might watch the family's 100-channel satellite television, or scan Serbian Internet sites on the computer. Copyright 1999 Associated Press .