Cuban Refugees Announcement of the Use of Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, as a Temporary Housing Site.

The White House announced today that Fort Chaffee, Ark., will be used as an additional temporary site to house Cuban refugees awaiting resettlement.

The continued heavy influx of Cuban refugees has brought the arrival facilities in the Florida Keys and the processing centers at the Tamiami Youth Center in Miami and Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida panhandle to capacity. The Federal Government processing centers and temporary housing facilities are being used to provide food, shelter, and medical care for those refugees who do not have family or friends to sponsor their arrival in this country.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is coordinating with the Department of Defense and other appropriate Federal agencies to prepare the Fort Chaffee site and relocate the refugees from their arrival points in south Florida.

Fort Chaffee, near Fort Smith, Ark., was used in 1975 and 1976 as a temporary housing facility for refugees from Indochina. The facility is expected to be fully operational within a week.