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Date: 4/20/2022
WESTFIELD — When Tolland residents Lise and David LeTellier learned Massachusetts would soon see an influx of 900 Afghan refugees who needed to start over in a new country, they decided to take action.
“We just couldn’t imagine what that would be like, but we realized we had to do something. And we like to do. That’s the kind of people we are — we’re doers, versus just making donations.”
They quickly made it their mission to find suitable housing for a refugee family resettling in the area. Lise, a science teacher at St. Mary’s High School, said she and her husband were determined to create a house that would be “clean and nice” for an Afghan family.
“We were going renovate a house so that one family would have a really nice place to be able to settle into our country,” added Letellier.
Their response to the refugee crisis, said LeTellier, is directly related to their faith as Catholic Christians.
“We have everything we need now, so we can give everything else out. Our new phrase is, ‘Do what we can, when we can, where we can.’”
She added that providing housing just seems to be where they wound up.
“Giving houses has been a common theme for us for the past 20 years. I feel like it’s in my blood — my grandfather was a home builder after World War II. He built hundreds of small homes throughout this whole area for people to live in after the war.”
David, who recently retired from a more than 40-year career as a union carpenter, recently received unexpected money from his pension annuity. That provided extra funds to use toward a down payment on a house. After searching the area, they finally found a house near downtown Westfield that recently had come on the market.
“We looked at five other houses in the area, but they were too expensive — even though they were in need of repair,” LeTellier said.
The LeTelliers wanted to keep the mortgage low, because rent from the Afghan family needed to cover mortgage payments. They finally found a small, single-family house, with four bedrooms and a two-car garage. It needed repairs, but was within their price range.
Buying the house in December with a down payment close to $50,000 was the easy part. The bigger challenge was renovating it to make the house suitable for a family. Renovations began the day after the loan closing and lasted for more than two months.
The major construction issue they faced was a “super-steep” staircase in the middle of the living room. “This staircase went downstairs and cut into the living room, making the room even smaller, so we needed to get rid of it. The staircase wasn’t even well-supported — the whole thing practically fell apart when we took it down,” said LeTellier.
For some people, this would be a daunting task, but for this couple in their 60s, it’s what they’ve done for decades.
“We’ve built our own homes; we’ve built homes for Habitat for Humanity. We’ve been responsible for organizing people to work on many Habitat houses, so we have this experience,” explained LeTellier.
While the LeTelliers bore the brunt of the major renovations, they also had some help from the Albert and Amelia Ferst Interfaith Center at Westfield State University (WSU). The center agreed to help support them with some renovation costs.
“All we asked them to do financially was to pay for a professional de-leading that we couldn’t do to remove lead and make the house lead-compliant,” said LeTellier. “They also paid for new electrical fixtures.”
All the remaining costs of materials — about $24,000 — were paid for by the LeTelliers. Labor costs — 90 percent of which they did — came to a value of about $21,000 for 524 volunteer hours.
“Any free time we had — nights, weekends, Christmas vacation — we were there,” she said.
They did get a little outside volunteer help, however. Volunteers from the interfaith center dropped in at different times, while some WSU students came for a day between semesters. Additionally, during move-in day in February, a group of St. Mary’s High School students helped move furniture into the house.
The center also developed a memorandum of understanding with a local refugee resettlement agency to provide additional assistance, since refugees coming to the U.S. only had a few basic personal necessities.
It agreed to provide the family moving into the house with food, clothing, furniture for the home, bedding, transportation to doctor appointments, and help registering children for school.
“The [memorandum] was pretty much for anything beyond what the resettlement agency was doing legally,” explained LeTellier. “They needed an entire household of things — from all the pots and pans to bedding.”
When the family — two adults and five children, with another on the way — arrived at their new home, St. Mary’s Parish gave them a $350 gift card to buy a few things they still needed, like twin bedsheets, plus some food. Additionally, the parish donated bunk beds.
Other donations included bicycles and helmets so the family can ride to the Westfield Atheneum and to the Westfield mosque, and a washing machine from the Episcopal church in Westfield.
“The family was so happy and so grateful for all the donations,” said LeTellier.
The Granville Library, where LeTellier is the librarian, lent the family a Chromebook. This computer gave them access to the internet, since the house only has basic electricity and gas for utilities.
One other important donation: a chess set.
“A WSU employee purchased chess sets for Afghan families. After they left, the Taliban banned chess, apparently, because the queen is the most powerful piece.”
The family also was introduced to an international market in West Springfield, Spices Hut, that sells halal meat certified as meeting Islamic dietary restrictions. The family’s father, who speaks six of the different languages in Afghanistan, met people who shared his language and developed some friendships.
“This led to a job at the market,” she said. “He’s also using the job to interact with others so he can learn English,” said LeTellier.
She said the family is adjusting to life in the Westfield area.
“It’s really eye-opening to recognize their struggles and yet they continue to smile, have incredible patience, and they remain in a place of joy. Most important, they feel safe here.”
LeTellier recalled thinking that the sounds of jets from Barnes Airport might cause a traumatic response for the family.
“When I heard the jets and asked them about it on two occasions, they said. ‘Yes, those jets are American. Feel safe.’”