Encompass; Human Cargo

<v Roger Vanderperren>For the boat people fleeing Vietnam. <v Roger Vanderperren>Death can come at any time and in many forms. <v Roger Vanderperren>Dysentery, exposure, starvation and brutal attack are all faced <v Roger Vanderperren>with frightening regularity. <v Roger Vanderperren>And those that do endure often end their journey too sick to walk or too <v Roger Vanderperren>weak to celebrate the safety of shore. <v Roger Vanderperren>Yet they keep coming. <v Roger Vanderperren>And in ever-increasing numbers. <v Roger Vanderperren>These desperate flights by South Vietnamese began with the fall of Saigon in 1975 <v Roger Vanderperren>as the North Vietnamese approached the city. <v Roger Vanderperren>Tens of thousands of refugees fled by every means possible. <v Roger Vanderperren>Rafts, small boats, even helicopters were used to reach the safety of <v Roger Vanderperren>American ships offshore. <v Roger Vanderperren>This flood of refugees soon receded to a trickle as the communists secured control. <v Roger Vanderperren>Only a few more boats managed to flee that year. <v Roger Vanderperren>But eventually, the exodus began to build again.

<v Roger Vanderperren>As more Vietnamese looked to the sea for escape. <v Roger Vanderperren>By January of 1979, the wave of refugees grew to 10000 a month. <v Roger Vanderperren>By me, it was over 60000. <v Roger Vanderperren>It has been estimated that only half of the refugees that leave Vietnam survive their <v Roger Vanderperren>ordeal on the high seas. <v Roger Vanderperren>Yet for the ones who are picked up by passing ships are lands safely ashore. <v Roger Vanderperren>Their journey for freedom and survival is not over. <v Roger Vanderperren>The conditions these people face on the ships and in the refugee camps can be as perilous <v Roger Vanderperren>as any they have encountered before. <v Roger Vanderperren>And it is part of the refugee story that is too often overlooked. <v Roger Vanderperren>One person who has witnessed this aspect of refugee life is a photojournalist for the <v Roger Vanderperren>Minneapolis Star.

<v Roger Vanderperren>Her name is Stormi Greener. <v Roger Vanderperren>In January of 1979, she went to Southeast Asia to photograph <v Roger Vanderperren>the conditions of refugee life. <v Roger Vanderperren>Onboard a freighter in Manila and on an island in Malaysia. <v Roger Vanderperren>Her photos and experiences tell of the plight of a people who have become little more <v Roger Vanderperren>than human cargo. <v Stormi Greener>This is the Tongan it's a sixteen hundred ten Frater. <v Stormi Greener>Harbored in Manila Bay. <v Stormi Greener>Twenty-three hundred and eighteen refugees on board. <v Stormi Greener>Heavily guarded by the Filipino Coast Guard on both sides. <v Stormi Greener>When I arrived in Manila. <v Stormi Greener>This ship had been anchored in the harbor for three and a half, <v Stormi Greener>four weeks. <v Stormi Greener>An Associated Press photographer and I hired a fishing boat and a little <v Stormi Greener>Filipino fisherman one Sunday morning at <v Stormi Greener>four o'clock hoping to elude the guard, or they <v Stormi Greener>would be hoping that maybe they would be asleep and we could approach the ship and get

<v Stormi Greener>aboard. <v Stormi Greener>As we approached, this is what we saw before <v Stormi Greener>sunrise, we realized that we wouldn't be able to approach as easily as we thought we <v Stormi Greener>would. We waited in the waters surrounding <v Stormi Greener>this ship. <v Stormi Greener>For about four and a half, five hours before we were actually able to <v Stormi Greener>to approach it, we were harassed a couple of times by the Coast Guard. <v Stormi Greener>They scared our fishermen to death. <v Stormi Greener>He was once we were able to approach. <v Stormi Greener>He was to come back and get us within a couple of hours. <v Stormi Greener>This was on approach, one of the guard ships had left the side <v Stormi Greener>of the Tongan gone to the mainland, gotten rations, brought <v Stormi Greener>them back, but hooked up on the other side with the other Coast Guard boat. <v Stormi Greener>This left this particular side of the ship free and

<v Stormi Greener>easy access for us as we approached. <v Stormi Greener>We were greeted from the side by refugees. <v Stormi Greener>They knew we were illegal. We're looking down at us. <v Stormi Greener>We were in a canoe and it was quite far down. <v Stormi Greener>We pointed to our cameras and motion for them to be real quiet of our presence. <v Stormi Greener>They knew pretty much what we wanted. They threw ropes over to us and direct us up the <v Stormi Greener>side of the ship. Once onboard, we crawled across the deck <v Stormi Greener>so we wouldn't be seen from the other side by the guards and climbed down into <v Stormi Greener>the hold of the ship. <v Stormi Greener>Was terribly crowded. <v Stormi Greener>Smelled of rotting cargo. <v Stormi Greener>And of just mass humanity crammed together in one small <v Stormi Greener>area where twenty-three hundred and eighteen refugees on this ship. <v Stormi Greener>Cargo was rotting. <v Stormi Greener>Was moist, it was wet, and maggots were forming in the tapioca <v Stormi Greener>flour, which was part of the cargo.

<v Stormi Greener>Filipino government had given that through their welfare department had given <v Stormi Greener>the refugees chairs and they were spread up in in this <v Stormi Greener>end of the hold of the ship. <v Stormi Greener>Something besides cargo for them to sit on. <v Stormi Greener>No matter how hot it was outside, it was too full, this hot inside the <v Stormi Greener>sun beating down listless children. <v Stormi Greener>No place to run and play. <v Stormi Greener>Nothing to do. There weren't any toys aboard. <v Stormi Greener>Was difficult walking through the bottom of this ship, not only because of the cargo, <v Stormi Greener>but because of the crowded conditions, was difficult getting <v Stormi Greener>between things without stepping on people or falling over others. <v Stormi Greener>They didn't seem to really mind they would reach their hands up and help you through. <v Stormi Greener>Someone would would drag their babies down beside them and point at them. <v Stormi Greener>Take picture. Take picture.

<v Stormi Greener>On leaving South Vietnam in small craft before <v Stormi Greener>they boarded the big freighter, they were only able to carry <v Stormi Greener>personal possessions that they could actually carry on their backs. <v Stormi Greener>This is what you see surrounding this woman. <v Stormi Greener>The ship, even though it is a cargo ship quite large, it's licensed <v Stormi Greener>to carry 28 crew members. <v Stormi Greener>Twenty-three hundred and eighteen refugees were living onboard. <v Stormi Greener>Sanitary conditions were lacking. <v Stormi Greener>Sanitary facilities were for those 28 crew members <v Stormi Greener>and the refugees took to the open sea. <v Stormi Greener>They were using that as a latrine. <v Stormi Greener>The top of the water around the ship was covered with human excrement. <v Stormi Greener>Further down the side, you would the same side that you see here, you <v Stormi Greener>would see other refugees throwing buckets and tins <v Stormi Greener>over hook to the side, hook to the ends of ropes, dragging seawater up to

<v Stormi Greener>do their washing. And they're bathing in. <v Stormi Greener>Ropes had been strung up in the hole down below. <v Stormi Greener>Some of them to hold hammocks. <v Stormi Greener>Others were holding clumps of wet clothing, waiting to dry. <v Stormi Greener>You can see here. <v Stormi Greener>These boys are eating a Neutra bun, which is similar to our hard rolls. <v Stormi Greener>It's packed with vitamins and minerals. <v Stormi Greener>This is what was being rationed out for breakfast. <v Stormi Greener>Some refugees on board were hoarding these buns and selling them <v Stormi Greener>to others later on that were out of food or <v Stormi Greener>that had. Hungry children. <v Stormi Greener>While I was on board, one woman came up to me <v Stormi Greener>and asked me if I could change a hundred dollar bill. She said she was out of food and <v Stormi Greener>needed to needed to buy some food for her children. <v Stormi Greener>This young child was sleeping.

<v Stormi Greener>Flies numbered in the millions. <v Stormi Greener>I bent down and shooed <v Stormi Greener>the flies away, and before I could take a picture, <v Stormi Greener>they were back. <v Stormi Greener>He has an eye infection and they just gathered right around his eye. <v Stormi Greener>Early in the morning, even when we were out in the water, you could hear <v Stormi Greener>laughter and some talking and joking going on. <v Stormi Greener>Spirits seemed to be pretty high. <v Stormi Greener>Later in the afternoon. <v Stormi Greener>Babies started crying. Older children started whimpering and. <v Stormi Greener>Arguments started flaring. <v Stormi Greener>Between adults at this point, we realize that <v Stormi Greener>we really didn't want to be on that ship much longer. <v Stormi Greener>There were some refugees that had told us a little earlier that our fishermen had <v Stormi Greener>been taken back to the mainland.

<v Stormi Greener>And we realized that we were stranded on board the only way back on the way off the <v Stormi Greener>Tongan was to give ourselves up to the Coast Guard. <v Stormi Greener>We dummied up some film. <v Stormi Greener>And started hiding what we had exposed while we were <v Stormi Greener>onboard and hid that. <v Stormi Greener>We went topside and we let them know that we were there. <v Stormi Greener>They become very became very hostile and. <v Stormi Greener>We were a little tense. We didn't know quite what was going to happen. <v Stormi Greener>We were taken from the Tongan onto the guard ship. <v Stormi Greener>We were taken back to the mainland and we were held in a guard office for <v Stormi Greener>about two and a half, three hours after they <v Stormi Greener>had called their ranks of superiors and we had been severely reprimanded. <v Stormi Greener>Our film had been confiscated. What they thought was our exposed film. <v Stormi Greener>They felt, I guess, that they had this story well in their own hands.

<v Stormi Greener>And they released us. <v Stormi Greener>French officials were coming in the next day to take 10 off <v Stormi Greener>the Tongan for resettlement in France after <v Stormi Greener>a number of temper tantrums. <v Stormi Greener>And going about the official way, the legal way to get back on the ship <v Stormi Greener>to do some interviewing and some shooting on topside. <v Stormi Greener>Number of times I was told no. <v Stormi Greener>I became such a nuisance that they told me I could go out with their local <v Stormi Greener>press and the friends of French officials to photograph. <v Stormi Greener>Those happy people that were ready for resettlement being taken off <v Stormi Greener>as we approached the ship. <v Stormi Greener>The refugees on board were sure that it was ration time and <v Stormi Greener>they gathered up along the sides with their tents and their buckets, <v Stormi Greener>wanting their freshwater supplies and their rations of rice

<v Stormi Greener>as the officials were taking these. <v Stormi Greener>This family of ten off-board they got this young child. <v Stormi Greener>And until they started going through. <v Stormi Greener>Their files and their paperwork. <v Stormi Greener>Did they realize that he didn't belong with that family? <v Stormi Greener>Here they're returning him to the Tongan. <v Stormi Greener>While this was going on, these people were being taken off. <v Stormi Greener>Others on board were watching, obviously. <v Stormi Greener>Not sure what was going to happen to them. <v Stormi Greener>Not sure what their destiny was when they might be resettled. <v Stormi Greener>Whether they would have to stay on the ship or they could go into a camp. <v Stormi Greener>Upon leaving, they again were <v Stormi Greener>gathered along the sides, waving and smiling, it was somewhat pathetic, <v Stormi Greener>was almost like they could be taking off on a Caribbean cruise.

<v Stormi Greener>The Tongan anchored in December. <v Stormi Greener>I was on it in January. <v Stormi Greener>These refugees lived on that boa for an excess <v Stormi Greener>of eight months. <v Stormi Greener>Resettlement camps are another part of the boat people story. <v Stormi Greener>Went to a refugee camp, an island off the coast of Malaysia, <v Stormi Greener>by far not the only resettlement camp in Southeast Asia. <v Stormi Greener>But at this particular time, it was the fastest-growing and the worst conditions <v Stormi Greener>prevail there. <v Stormi Greener>This is the island that we've all heard so much about recently. <v Stormi Greener>It's called Pulau Bidong. <v Stormi Greener>It's 18 miles off the coast of Malaysia. <v Stormi Greener>Malaysians have turned it into a refugee island. <v Stormi Greener>Six months prior to my being there, it was totally uninhabited by any human life form. <v Stormi Greener>When I was on there in January, there were thirty thousand people

<v Stormi Greener>in excess of thirty thousand refugees residing on the island on approach to <v Stormi Greener>the island. As you come up on one of these white beaches, the first <v Stormi Greener>thing that's visible is. <v Stormi Greener>Vietnamese fishing craft hull. <v Stormi Greener>You can more or less see how big this hole is. <v Stormi Greener>There's three people standing in the water just in front of it. <v Stormi Greener>This craft brought 250 refugees to the island. <v Stormi Greener>The vegetation that you see growing toward the beach here, I understand, is no longer <v Stormi Greener>there. <v Stormi Greener>Thirty thousand people living on eighty-five acres looks just about like this. <v Stormi Greener>It is this crowded, it's difficult walking around. <v Stormi Greener>In some spots, it's looking like a tropical paradise. <v Stormi Greener>Beautiful blue sea, nice blue sky, white beaches. <v Stormi Greener>In fact, it really isn't.

<v Stormi Greener>This boy is playing on a beach that is totally polluted. <v Stormi Greener>What you see around this child on the beach. <v Stormi Greener>Are not beach rocks. They are. <v Stormi Greener>It is human excrement. <v Stormi Greener>The skeletons that you see behind him are <v Stormi Greener>beached fishing craft that the refugees have taken apart. <v Stormi Greener>They're skeletons of boats that brought them to the island. <v Stormi Greener>They're using every part of anything that's left <v Stormi Greener>on the boat to build fires and to help them build their huts. <v Stormi Greener>The same beach the boys playing on, not too far from where <v Stormi Greener>he's playing, looking back toward the island and the hill. <v Stormi Greener>This is what you see. <v Stormi Greener>There isn't any place on the island to bury garbage. <v Stormi Greener>The garbage is not being taken from the island to the mainland for disposal. <v Stormi Greener>And it just lies open on the beach. It's.

<v Stormi Greener>A breeding ground for flies. <v Stormi Greener>And they number in the millions. <v Stormi Greener>And as I said, the island is being denuded and this is one reason why they're taking down <v Stormi Greener>every bit of small vegetation that they can. <v Stormi Greener>They're stripping it. They're using it for frames for Hutz. <v Stormi Greener>Covering it with plastic sheets, plastic flower bags, rice bags, <v Stormi Greener>those that were early arrivals on the island were lucky enough to get the corrugated tin <v Stormi Greener>that you see on the roofs in the in the background there. <v Stormi Greener>The pond that you see here is not freshwater, it's runoff. <v Stormi Greener>Water refuges are taking seawater. <v Stormi Greener>They're carrying it back up to their huts, up to the hill. <v Stormi Greener>They're doing their washing and they're bathing in it. <v Stormi Greener>It's running down to the bottom of the hill in troughs that they have dug. <v Stormi Greener>And it's just settling right here. <v Stormi Greener>This young girl is doing the family wash in seawater and she eventually will dump it <v Stormi Greener>right into the same place. The stench is incredible and people are living right on top of

<v Stormi Greener>it. <v Stormi Greener>Cooking over open fires. <v Stormi Greener>This is somewhat dangerous, too, if a wind happened to catch a flame. <v Stormi Greener>And. Set one of these tarps on fire that's covering these huts. <v Stormi Greener>The whole island would go up there. <v Stormi Greener>There would be no way of stopping it. <v Stormi Greener>Vegetation, again, is being used not only for for frames, <v Stormi Greener>for shelter, but it's also being tied together and used for beds. <v Stormi Greener>I counted 15 people in one family sleeping on a bed just like this <v Stormi Greener>one night. <v Stormi Greener>This man is. <v Stormi Greener>Pure Chinese. <v Stormi Greener>He speaks nothing, but he is on the island with nephews and <v Stormi Greener>family. <v Stormi Greener>The family has relatives in Australia and they hope eventually to be resettled there. <v Stormi Greener>Twins were born on the island when I was there.

<v Stormi Greener>Terribly unsanitary conditions. <v Stormi Greener>There is a dispensary and one room in the dispensary <v Stormi Greener>was was where these babies were born. <v Stormi Greener>There wasn't any fresh hot water being used. <v Stormi Greener>I did notice a huge barrel of seawater sitting over to one side <v Stormi Greener>after the baby was born. It wasn't washed off. <v Stormi Greener>It was just wiped dry and wrapped in semi-clean <v Stormi Greener>terry cloth towel. <v Stormi Greener>This is baby number one. <v Stormi Greener>This is baby number two, a refugee doctor delivered it. <v Stormi Greener>And then we see father when he realizes that there's more <v Stormi Greener>than one child. He's already got four. <v Stormi Greener>The night that I was waiting for the twins to be born. <v Stormi Greener>I walked back behind the dispensary. <v Stormi Greener>Into a makeshift tent area look like a mini-war zone, it had four

<v Stormi Greener>hospital beds in it. <v Stormi Greener>The beds didn't have mattresses. <v Stormi Greener>It had a piece, this particular bed had a piece of dirty <v Stormi Greener>burlap and a piece of cardboard on it. <v Stormi Greener>Mother was sitting there with her 18 month old child. <v Stormi Greener>She was spooning sugar water into the baby's mouth. <v Stormi Greener>The baby was extremely ill, was suffering from diarrhea, <v Stormi Greener>malnutrition and dehydration. <v Stormi Greener>The child was to be taken by police <v Stormi Greener>boat or by Red Crescent Boat the next morning to the mainland for treatment at the <v Stormi Greener>hospital. <v Stormi Greener>The next morning, there wasn't a boat available. <v Stormi Greener>And the baby died. <v Stormi Greener>He was buried on the island that day.

<v Stormi Greener>Again, an 18-month-old child. <v Stormi Greener>Well, when he left Vietnam upon arriving at the island, <v Stormi Greener>there wasn't fresh water available. <v Stormi Greener>32 wells had been dug. <v Stormi Greener>Fifteen of those were dry. <v Stormi Greener>The rest were being polluted by runoff, and seawater, <v Stormi Greener>and human excrement that was coming off the top of the hill during rains. <v Stormi Greener>They weren't boiling it well enough. <v Stormi Greener>They were watering the milk down that's being provided to them, which is can <v Stormi Greener>milk and it's far too rich for for babies. <v Stormi Greener>It's being fed to them. They're contracting diarrhea. <v Stormi Greener>There's not enough medicine on the island to control <v Stormi Greener>the diarrhea. And again, it's turning into malnutrition and <v Stormi Greener>dehydration, the babies are.

<v Stormi Greener>Are getting extremely ill. <v Stormi Greener>Skin disease runs rampant on the island. <v Stormi Greener>As you can see on the top of this boy's head. <v Stormi Greener>When I was in the dispensary, I counted 13 bottles of medicine for 30000 people. <v Stormi Greener>That's not very much. <v Stormi Greener>It doesn't control the disease. <v Stormi Greener>This man is 92. <v Stormi Greener>He had spent three days at the hospital on the mainland <v Stormi Greener>in Kuala Terengganu. They told him there that there wasn't anything else that they could <v Stormi Greener>do for him. <v Stormi Greener>He had to return to the island and here he's being carried. <v Stormi Greener>On his grandson's back from the beach, back up to their hut. <v Stormi Greener>They've become very ingenious about how they're living on the island, it's like a beehive <v Stormi Greener>of activity. They have a work crew setup. <v Stormi Greener>It's building a jetty out over the coral reefs that surround the island. <v Stormi Greener>That's to help get rations to the island during the heavy weather.

<v Stormi Greener>They have an information section. They're keeping track of every boat, every number of <v Stormi Greener>the boat. And exactly how many people and what their names are that arrive <v Stormi Greener>on the boats. <v Stormi Greener>They have a crew of interpreters, they're helping the <v Stormi Greener>officials from the different countries that are there interviewing and opening up files <v Stormi Greener>and trying to resettle the refugees on the island. <v Stormi Greener>They have their own special security force, along with the special <v Stormi Greener>police from Malaysia that are that are also on the island. <v Stormi Greener>This man is building an oven. They're actually baking French bread. <v Stormi Greener>They're getting their ingredients for the bread from the black market. <v Stormi Greener>And this is provided by Malaysian fisherman. <v Stormi Greener>Young adults, teenage boys are swimming out over the coral reefs. <v Stormi Greener>Climbing aboard the Malaysian fishing craft, bartering their prices and.

<v Stormi Greener>Wrapping their goods in and plastic flower bags, <v Stormi Greener>they're swimming it back to the island. <v Stormi Greener>And this is what you see here on the black market the next day. <v Stormi Greener>This is. This takes place constantly. <v Stormi Greener>You can buy a small package of cigarettes for two dollars and fifty cents, and I'm <v Stormi Greener>speaking American money. <v Stormi Greener>A can of Coca-Cola is 2.50. <v Stormi Greener>Half a liter of cooking oil was 12 dollars. <v Stormi Greener>Small bottle of soy sauce was six dollars. <v Stormi Greener>Fresh eggs were 50 cents. <v Stormi Greener>Beer was totally prohibited on the island. <v Stormi Greener>But if you had seven dollars, you could buy one. <v Stormi Greener>It rained the last day I was there. <v Stormi Greener>This is really the only freshwater bathing that anyone is is getting and they are taking <v Stormi Greener>advantage of that.

<v Stormi Greener>They're putting out their buckets in their teens and their waste cans, anything <v Stormi Greener>that will hold water in order to have some fresh water on hand. <v Stormi Greener>This is a saltwater bath, not a freshwater bath. <v Stormi Greener>This woman and her two children were the victims of a Thai pirate <v Stormi Greener>attack. After they left Vietnam, they ended up in the Thai waters. <v Stormi Greener>Their boat was attacked. <v Stormi Greener>This woman and her two children were forced to watch as the male member of the family was <v Stormi Greener>dragged to the side of the boat, dismembered to get his gold jewelry off, <v Stormi Greener>severely beaten and thrown overboard. <v Stormi Greener>There were two young women on that boat also that were raped by the fisherman. <v Stormi Greener>During the funeral of that small baby. <v Stormi Greener>It was being buried on the island on the top of the hill, I stood one afternoon. <v Stormi Greener>And watched Vietnamese fishing craft approached the island.

<v Stormi Greener>An estimated 300 Vietnamese refugees aboard. <v Stormi Greener>The Malaysian Navy gunboat that you see on the front. <v Stormi Greener>Stopped the craft. <v Stormi Greener>Officials climbed aboard the fishing boat. <v Stormi Greener>They searched it. They decided that it was seaworthy and they dragged it back out to sea. <v Stormi Greener>No one seems to know what happened to that craft or the refugees that were on <v Stormi Greener>it. <v Stormi Greener>An American official is swearing in Dr. <v Stormi Greener>Zee and his family to the United States. <v Stormi Greener>They're ready for resettlement. <v Stormi Greener>They were due in Minneapolis. <v Stormi Greener>About four months after I arrived home. <v Stormi Greener>I met them at the airport and I heard from Dr. Z <v Stormi Greener>a couple of months after they'd been in Minneapolis. <v Stormi Greener>He was unable to resume his schooling there and he couldn't <v Stormi Greener>find himself a job without resuming his schooling.

<v Stormi Greener>They have moved on to Chicago now. <v Stormi Greener>These hands belong to this woman. <v Stormi Greener>She's 86 years old. <v Stormi Greener>She left South Vietnam. <v Stormi Greener>With friends, she had no family. <v Stormi Greener>She was told that was the thing to do and she's now alone on the island. <v Stormi Greener>She has no relatives or any other ties <v Stormi Greener>in any other country. She stands to be on the island a long time if she doesn't <v Stormi Greener>die there. <v Stormi Greener>Malaysian special police insisted. <v Stormi Greener>When I went to the island that I take a bodyguard with me. <v Stormi Greener>He was a constant companion while I was there. <v Stormi Greener>And he refused to let me take any letters <v Stormi Greener>or any mail from the island for mailing. <v Stormi Greener>That was supposed to be done through the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. <v Stormi Greener>One boy's last attempt to get a letter home, word back to his family

<v Stormi Greener>worry was that he was needing help and money was to swim out to our boat. <v Stormi Greener>And beg us to take his letter. We did. <v Stormi Greener>We didn't mail it in Malaysia. <v Roger Vanderperren>The ordeals of refugee life are not isolated to boat people, <v Roger Vanderperren>intolerable conditions have caused hundreds of thousands of people to flee their <v Roger Vanderperren>countries. <v Roger Vanderperren>In refugee camps throughout Southeast Asia, Cambodians, Laotians <v Roger Vanderperren>and Vietnamese struggled to stay alive, although the faces and locations <v Roger Vanderperren>change, the death and suffering remain the same. <v Roger Vanderperren>The immediate needs of these people are food and medicine for without them. <v Roger Vanderperren>Many will never leave. <v Roger Vanderperren>And for those that do survive, there is a long future of living in the camps <v Roger Vanderperren>because life as a refugee can only end when they are able to find a home.