US offers $1,000 grants to resettle Cubans

The federal government is moving to speed the resettlement of 8,100 Cuban refugees in Fort Chaffee, Ark., and the Miami area by offering increased grants of $1,000 to volunteer agencies for each refugee they place. It had been paying the agencies $300 per refugee resettled out of the camps. A spokesman for the State Department's Cuban Haitian Task Force said the settlement fee was increased because many of the refugees have emotional or psychological problems and need long-term institutional care.

Meanwhile, a Public Health Service spokesman said a group of about 20 Cuban refugees smashed windows, threw furniture, and set small fires in a three-hour spree at a Washington, D.C., mental hospital. In all, 92 refugees are at the hospital for treatment of mental and emotional problems.