Summer 2001: 200

Spring 2002: 1,000

Summer 2006: 2,000-3,000

Note: Population estimates vary

General Assistance
Per month

• 12: Average number of new Somali families applying for General Assistance Feb. 2001 to May 2004

• 12: Average number applying June 2004 to June 2006

Per year

• 108: Number of Somali families applying for assistance July 2004 through June 2005

• 172: Number of Somali families applying for assistance July 2005 through June 2006

Source: City of Lewiston Office of General Assistance

Rents

Somalis continue to move to Lewiston for affordable housing.

Fair market apartment rents

Portland 2001

Two-bedroom: $749 per month

Three-bedroom: $937 per month

Lewiston 2001

Two-bedroom: $505 per month

Three-bedroom: $633 per month

Portland 2005

Two-bedroom: $895 per month

Three-bedroom: $1,128 per month

Lewiston 2005

Two-bedroom: $542 per month

Three-bedroom: $680 per month

Source: .S. Department of Housing and rban Development

Employment

• About 50 percent of adult Somalis have jobs

• Most work in manufacturing, retail and the service industry

• Others work as janitors, school counselors, translators and mentors

Source: Lewiston Career Center

Businesses

• Five markets (estimated)

• Two restaurants

• One general merchandise store

• Several translation services

• One known day-care center

Note: Local Chamber of Commerce has no official numbers

‘We choose to be here’
After five years, Somali immigrants are at home in Lewiston, despite the ‘bullies.’

LEWISTON – Jawab Aden is home.

“I am happy to be here,” says the five-year Lewiston resident, pointing to the grounds of Kennedy Park.

He grabs up a bit of grass for emphasis: “Right here! This is where I will be forever.”

Aden came to Lewiston in 2001 with the first wave of Somalis. He soon found a job as a materials handler for L.L. Bean and has tried to help other Somalis settle in ever since.

Lewiston is not perfect, he said. There is a downtown element that tries to intimidate people, especially Somalis. He and his friends label them bullies but believe they are of little consequence.

Most Somalis agree with him, he insists.

“We could be anywhere. Anywhere,” Aden says. “We choose to be here. This is good, very good. I have a job, I have a community, my children are learning.”

Estimates of how many Somalis live in Lewiston-Auburn range from 2,000 to 3,000. Between seven and 20 new families arrive each month, according to General Assistance statistics.

They have settled in, found homes and a safe community. Opened businesses and built a mosque. Officially, L-A has welcomed the new immigrants, but some say they have been victims of “bullies.”

‘I hate you’

Abdullahai Mahdi says four people accosted him one morning in July as he made his way to the mosque for dawn prayers. It started with one man, who approached Mahdi’s car when he stopped at an intersection.

“He yelled at my window, ‘I hate you Somalis! Go back to Africa!'” Mahdi said. Then, the man began pounding on the car, trying to break Mahdi’s window. He drove away, but the man and three friends followed him in a truck.

Mahdi drove back to Park Street and stopped at the Lewiston Police station to wait for officers. The bullies waited too, until a squad car appeared. Then they scattered, melting back into Kennedy Park.

Mahdi missed dawn prayers at the mosque that morning and police did not find his would-be attackers. But he was philosophical about the encounter.

“They were drunk,” he said. They would have accosted anybody, he figures.

Mohamed Haidara says notes appear occasionally on the window of his African Store, on Lisbon Street.

“Sometimes, someone puts up papers on my window with insults that say, ‘Go home,’ but we just take them down,” Haidara said.

Some people shout insults at his customers from passing cars. Haidara believes they are ignorant people, like Brent Matthews, the man police say bowled a frozen pig’s head through the door of the mosque in July. He faces a misdemeanor charge of defacement and desecration of a place of worship. He also has been sued by state prosecutors who claim Matthews violated Maine’s Civil Rights Act.

The action stunned the Muslim community, which views a pig’s head in a mosque as the ultimate insult to its religious beliefs.

But the bullies are few, Haidara said.

“Most are very nice, very friendly,” he said. “That’s what I tell people. Maybe hundreds of people are bad. But thousands are very good to us.”

Harun Sheekhey is still not sure who scratched swastikas and a big letter X into the windows of Cleopatra’s, his popular Lisbon Street restaurant. Police have investigated and still have no leads.

Sheekhey has closed the restaurant while he waits to get the windows fixed.

“I can’t serve customers like this,” he said, pointing to the Lisbon Street windows. But he vows to reopen – and he’s bought a security camera system to catch the vandals if they decide to return.

Sheekhey is convinced the vandalism was motivated by race, but friends and customers have been wonderful, offering moral support, he said.

“Since this happened, I’ve had 200 people come up to me, tell me they felt terrible and they can’t wait for me to reopen,” he said. They’ve all been white.

“I get wonderful support from the community. I feel very welcome,” he said.

Almost all of his customers are white, Lewiston lunch-goers looking for good, inexpensive food.

“Most Somalis, if they see 10 white people sitting here, they won’t come in,” Sheekhey said.

Police reports

Police battle that same timidity, said Chief William Welch. Many Somalis never report problems like vandalism. Instead, they talk about it with friends and family.

Welch tries to build relationships with members of the community, meeting weekly with Somalis to talk over coffee. He’s tried to make himself much more accessible, handing out business cards to people at a July 12 rally in Kennedy Park.

“People were coming up to me, asking if they could come in and talk about a variety of issues,” Welch said.

So far, none has followed up.

“I think they were sincere, but I know how that can be,” Welch said. “You don’t think about police until you have a problem.”

Having a group of first-wave Somalis step forward would be a great help, he said.

“If the people who have been here for five years could help greet the newcomers, it would help us a lot,” the chief said. “They would tell them the differences here, explain the things they don’t understand.”

Five years

The Somalis who made their way to Maine fled a war-ravaged homeland, living in refugee camps before being resettled in the nited States. Many were placed in Atlanta and other large cities at first. They endured high crime rates for a while, but then began looking for better homes.

By 2001, some said they’d found it in Maine. Hundreds began moving to Portland. When the Portland housing market filled up, they continued on up the road to Lewiston.

Many of those first Lewiston Somalis moved on to other parts of the country, but others, like Haidara, stayed and built a community.

By the end of the summer of 2001, officials estimated there were 200 Somalis in Lewiston. By the spring of 2002, the number had grown to an estimated 1,000. City estimates now put their numbers at more than 2,000.

Abdirizak Mahboub, a local businessman, puts the number higher. Somalis make up 10 percent of the city’s population now, he said. That’s about 3,000 individuals.

“Look around the city, in the parks and on the streets,” Mahboub said. “Most of the people you see playing at Kennedy Park now are Somalis. It’s hard to miss.”

Lewiston’s lack of crime is the biggest draw for Somalis, Mahboub said. Lewiston is a safe place to raise children.

Housing is another draw.

“That was what brought people here originally,” he said. “People could find places to stay for very little money.”

Housing continues to draw Somalis and other new immigrants to Lewiston, said Catherine Yomoah of Coastal Enterprises Inc., a private nonprofit community development group that works with new immigrants.

Lewiston’s rental market has remained relatively stable over the past five years. Average monthly rent on a two-bedroom apartment went from $505 in 2001 to $542 by the end of 2005, according to Housing and rban Development statistics.

There are still apartments available to rent in Lewiston, but they may be more difficult to find, said Jim Dowling, executive director of the Lewiston Housing Authority.

“Our waiting lists for assisted rents are longer, and there are many more Somali names on those list than there were five years ago,” Dowling said.

About half working

Jobs are a more difficult matter,Yomoah said.

“The No. 1 complaint we hear is a lack of good jobs,” she said. “They come here, they find cheap housing, but they have a more difficult time finding work.”

Some end up moving to Portland, where the jobs are more plentiful. They continue to live in Lewiston if they have transportation.

About half of all Somali adults are employed, said Rose Hodges, employment training specialist at the Lewiston Career Center.

Many are Muslims, which makes them unable to take certain jobs, such as working in restaurants or supermarkets where they might be required to handle pork products. Their religion forbids such contact because pork is considered unclean.

“Most work manufacturing things or in the service industry, working in hotels or stores,” Hodges said. Many work as janitors or provide services to other Somalis – working as counselors in the schools, translators or mentors.

Those that held professional jobs in Somalia usually find their credentials do not work in the nited States.

“I had one young man go through a nursing program here, and he said it was completely different than what he had done in Somalia,” Hodges said.

Other Somalis have started their own businesses, although nobody is sure how many. Androscoggin Chamber of Commerce President Chip Morrison said no Somali businesses belong to his group, although they have been invited.

“I know of a couple of markets and restaurants, but I’m sure there are many more I don’t know about,” he said. “It’s a popular question and we get asked it a lot, but there really is no hard data on that kind of thing.”

‘nsuccessful in Maine’

But a home is more than just a place to work and Somalis have a long way to go before they feel like members of the community, said Abdirizak Mahboub, a local businessman.

“We’ve been here five years, and we’ve tried to become mainstream,” Mahboub said. “But we’re not. We’re unsuccessful in Maine, so far. It just will not open up.”

Mahboub hopes to change that. He has started a Lewiston branch of African Community Economic Development of New England, a Boston-based organization helping Eastern African immigrants. The group provides job training for adults and summer camp and college prep for students.

Somalis need to take control and civic leaders need to let them, he said. That’s the next step if Somalis hope to build a permanent community in Lewiston.

“We offer to provide job training for our people, and we’re told they’ve opened a new room in the career center,” Mahboub said. He compared it to teaching someone to drive but never letting them take the wheel.

“We need to do some of these things ourselves,” he said.