A Congolese Refugee Helps Other Refugees Find Homes In Baltimore

In today's installment of our ongoing series, “Starting From Scratch: Refugees Rebuilding Lives in Baltimore,” we hear the unusual story of a man who wasn’t happy simply making a new life for himself in the United States. He wanted to help others do the same. WYPR’s Sarah Richards has the story.

“Peace be with this house and with all who dwell here and live here. Amen.”

More than a dozen people are standing in a ring around Father Bill Watters on the second floor of a rowhome in Madison Park. They’re from five different countries and they’ve all come to witness the blessing of this newly renovated house. That’s because this house’s owner is someone near and dear to their hearts. His name is John Sezikeye. This is one of five homes Sezikeye is renting out to newcomers to the U.S.

“How many people are you housing?”

“Okay. My house, I think six of them. The other house, I think six. There is two, another house…”

In all, Sezikeye is renting rooms to 26 people. The people he rents to are all either refugees or immigrants. He knows life can be challenging for these people. He’s a refugee himself.

“I was born in eastern Congo, in a town called Bukavu.”

Sezikeye is a thin man with a shaved head. When we met in the summer to talk about his life, he wore sweat pants and a baseball cap. He was busy working on the house, despite the 90 degree heat. Sezikeye’s hometown of Bukavu can also be hot. It’s an area rich in natural resources. And, more recently, in conflict.

“I’m a Tutsi. When I grew up, I never felt a difference between Hutu and Tutsi. We shared food, lived together. Basically, they are not enemies, but somehow politicians, they use it.”

In 1994, Sezikeye left the Democratic Republic of the Congo for southeast India to study statistics and computer science. The idea after his studies was always: get back to the Congo. But as the country sank deep into a war involving neighboring countries, ethnic groups and militias of shifting allegiance, Sezikeye says he realized he was in trouble.

“Basically, I didn’t have a home at that time. But I still kept hanging on, saying by the time I finished school, things will be fine.”

Seven years passed. Things didn’t improve. Looking back, Sezikeye says politicians preyed on the desperation and poverty of the Congolese people. He explains it like this:

“Suppose someone who goes to college. If you see that at the end of your journey, there’s hope, if you study well, you get a job. You never leave your school and go and fight. Because you still have better options. When someone goes to school, you finish your college, you have no job. Then someone comes and tell you, ‘You know what? If you can fight against that specific person, when I’ll be in power, I’ll give you a better job.’ That’s what attracts young people to go and fight.’”

Fearing for his life, Sezikeye applied for refugee status in the U.S. He arrived in 2004. Life in Baltimore was an eye-opener.

“The first day, I stepped out and said: ‘Am I in U.S. or some place else?’”

Refugees are given financial and social service support when they first arrive in the U.S. But budgets are tight for resettlement agencies. Sezikeye was put up in an apartment in West Baltimore. He says he shared the place with another refugee here on South Payson Street, surrounded by vacant rowhouses.

“Part of the shock comes from the way U.S. does project itself outside of U.S. So, people think that U.S. is Hollywood. You will see that most of the movies they show you all the big cities. In the night, you see all lights you feel, ‘Wow, that’s what U.S. is.’ But when you come here and see other places you say, ‘Oh, my goodness.’”

He says he’d often step out of his house only to be frisked for drugs by undercover police. Sezikeye was eventually able to move in with an American family. Jeff Ross and his wife were providing rooms to refugees who had just moved to the U.S.

“He was living in a pretty rough neighborhood in Baltimore city and he was eager to move out of there, so he contacted us. And we almost didn’t have a place for him, but he was very persuasive. And his needs were urgent, we felt, to get him out of that neighborhood.”

Sezikeye worked as a cleaner. And then, at BWI Airport, all the while building what he calls his network. That’s when he tracked down Martin Ford. He’s the associate director of the Maryland Office for Refugees and Asylees. Ford said one day, Sezikeye showed up at his office. He told Ford he was pushing wheelchairs at the airport—a job frequently held by refugees.

“He was doing that and explained to me that he was glad to have that job, but was beginning to feel sort of trapped by it because he had trained for some years in software development in India. He was from the Congo, escaped a horrible situation there, now wanted something better.”

Ford passed around Sezikeye’s resume. Sezikeye eventually found a job as a software engineer at Johns Hopkins. It’s this networking that Sezikeye believes is critical for the success of refugees like him who are rebuilding their lives in the U.S.

“This country has a lot of opportunities. If you don’t have the right network, even if you have very high potential to do good thing, you end up doing nothing. You’re not able to do exactly the thing you’d love to do.”

It takes only a few minutes to see Sezikeye’s five homes. They’re all in the same general area. Most of the people Sezikeye takes in are from Africa. Places like Cameroon, The Democratic Republic of the Congo. Rwanda. But he’s also opened his doors to people from Iran and India. In his own house on Eutaw Place, he lives with five other people. He says he charges a modest rent—so they’ll still have money to build their lives. He meets with his tenants shortly after they move in to discuss their future.

“As I always tell them, ‘I don’t want you to come to my house and be here, then two-three years down the road, you are still the same. I want to see you growing. I’m willing to help you as much as I can, to find people who can help you. But we want you to grow and move forward.’ That’s what I hope everyone is doing.”

One member of Sezikeye’s network is Father Watters. He performed the house blessing ceremony.

“Everybody who’s met him tells me, where does this man come from? He came from heaven as far as I’m concerned.”

Watters is the pastor of St. Ignatius Church on Calvert Street. When Watters knows of an immigrant in need of a place to stay, he’ll call Sezikeye. His order donates to Sezikeye to help him with his outreach.

“He’s very sincere about it. He said I want to be able to help those who come here, and they don’t have the English language, they don’t have a job, don’t have any place to live, they have very little money if any in their pocket. So how do I get some food on the table, clothes on their back and a place to live and get them stabilized so they can get a job? So that’s a wonderful thing to be doing. He’s an angel.”

Sezikeye doesn’t see it that way.

“I always feel that I am what I am because people helped me. And many of those who helped, I’m not in a position to go back and pay back them. So the only way to pay them back is do exactly what they did for me by helping other people.”

To Sezikeye, it’s simply a question of being thankful.

I'm Sarah Richards, reporting in West Baltimore, for 88-1 WYPR.