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In Congo, they never heard gunshots this close by, until the war.

But here in Greensboro, where Marie-Jeanne Bombongo and her refugee neighbors were resettled in 2008 in low-rent flats off English Street, gunfire is a daily threat. So is joblessness, hunger and the gathering fear they will be evicted for back rent.

"In Congo and the refugee camp, the children used to go out and play soccer," Bombongo, 36, says in the lilting French of the West African republic, now caught in a catastrophic, escalating war. "Here, it's too dangerous. We don't know how to find work, or what we are going to do."

The problem that approached critical mass in recent weeks for Bombongo and more than two dozen African refugee families resettled at Avalon Trace Apartments is being repeated at Overland Heights and other budget rentals here and in High Point, enough to have reached the doorstep of local churches, the police department and ultimately the desk of Mayor Yvonne Johnson.

"These people are relatively recent arrivals and have been through a lot. They're petrified," said Cathy Justice, a community relations troubleshooter at City Hall. "We're not social workers, but we've got a responsibility here. We as a country invited them here. Now, they need our help."

The problem, in a nutshell, is that refugees that the United Nations and U.S. State Department brought here for safe harbor from war-torn countries - Myanmar, Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone - can't find the entry-level dishwasher, custodial or cab driver jobs once readily available to previous refugee waves such as Montagnards, Benadir and Bosnians. They are placed in low-rent, high-crime areas. The grants dry up, the buck gets passed.

At Avalon Trace, a circa-1960s complex originally built for Lorillard tobacco workers behind what is now East Market Food Lion, the picture went from grim to dire last week.

Four refugee families received eviction notices set for Monday court dates. Some owed as much as $1,200 in back rent and utilities to Alliance Management. Contacted Friday, the property manager declined to comment on tenant finances.

One of the tenants who received the eviction summons is Mamie Kosia, 23, a Liberian who is fluent in English and five other languages. After her father was killed by soldiers and her mother died of injuries in a refugee camp, Kosia was left to take care of her younger sister, now 15, and her own son, now 5. They arrived in Greensboro in May. Kosia went to work at the N.C. A&T cafeteria, but said she lost the job when she was hospitalized for surgery and became seriously ill.

Since then, she said, she has used a bus pass to apply for jobs at employers including Replacements, Polo Ralph Lauren and UNCG's cafeteria. When her 90-day initial rent and resettlement grant from the Jewish Federation ran out, Kosia accidentally met a Catholic nun who was helping a refugee neighbor.

Since then, the nun's church, St. Mary's, has paid Kosia's rent, just as a Protestant church, Westover, has been paying the Bombongo family's rent across the street, after a worried principal from the children's school called the church.

Was there an alternative to this crazy quilt of hit-or-miss charity, given the economic downturn that few saw coming?

According to the Greensboro Jewish Federation, the nonprofit agency that resettled the Avalon Trace families, just some of the hundreds of refugees resettled to the Triad in 2008, the initial grant was for 90 days of assistance.

After that, the families were referred to caseworkers at African Services Coalition or Lutheran Family Services, depending on language or preference.

The African Services Coalition, sensing the looming crisis for the African refugees, some of whom were living in apartments they could not afford to heat in December - some with small children at home, some ill - appealed to the United Way of Greater Greensboro in early January and got a commitment from the emergency Operation Greensboro Cares fund.

As of Friday afternoon, the last business day before the Avalon Trace residents' court date, an $18,000 check for African Services was still at United Way, though marketing director Jenny Stokes was seeking a release of the check and said the evictions and unpaid utilities appeared to qualify as an emergency.

Asked about the eviction proceedings, the office manager at African Services Coalition said director Omer Omer was unavailable and would only say, "We're working on it."

At her Avalon Trace apartment, after meeting her son at the bus stop last Wednesday, Kosia warmed her feet in front of a space heater she bought for $15 at Walmart before Christmas. The apartment has a gas heater, but the last monthly bill came to $190, so they use the space heater, and leave the doors open at night. It works OK.

Kosia, a pretty but melancholy young woman, suffers from gastric ulcers and what doctors suspect is post-traumatic stress, a possible result of the storied horrors of the Liberian war that left her the orphaned head of the family in a crowded refugee camp.

In contrast, son Claudio, 5, is gregarious and impish, despite an earlier trip to the dentist with the nun. Claudio enjoys school but is challenged by English, accustomed to Mende as his primary language. With no family to fall back on - no in-laws, no siblings - the closest thing Kosia has is her best friends she grew with in the refugee camp. If worst comes to worst, she'll go find them.

"One is in Iowa. The other one is in North Dakota. They say they are working and they're OK," she says in her quiet way. "When they bring you to where you're supposed to be, they just - take you there."

Iowa. North Dakota. To me, it sounds so far away. To Mamie and Claudio, it just sounds like another place they write on a piece of paper, pin to your coat and take you to.

North Dakota. North Carolina. Another place to be a refugee.

Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lorraine.ahearn@news-record.com