If you are lucky enough not to need help, here are ways to help those who do
Stephanie Mills was laid off from her job as a server at Cascadia Grill, a popular downtown Olympia restaurant. Mills used her last paycheck to pay this month’s rent. She was able to get food benefits, and she says “Comcast is being nice.” But it’s hard to get any other help because, she says, “websites are crashing” from the tsunami of layoffs and distress.
She applied for unemployment insurance online, but was inexplicably denied. She called to find out why. “I called and called and it would just hang up,” she says. Finally, on March 28, she requested an appointment for a phone conversation with an actual person. Her appointment is set for April 24. That’s a long wait, but she says, “A friend of mine has a date for May 11.”
Jef Dukes, her former boss, had to lay off 20 people. He is in the process of applying for federal help. “I’m so glad we have an accountant,” he says, “because those programs are complicated, and they seem too good to be true.” Still, he says, “We are doing surprisingly well with take-out business. I am so grateful to our loyal and generous customers.”
Mike Reid, the city of Olympia’s economic development director, says the programs “sound too good to be true, but they are true. For small businesses, the good guys won this time.”
However, the federal programs have had a tangle of startup issues. Only banks approved by the Small Business Administration can process the loans and grants, and they put their own customers first in line. That means people who bank at non-SBA approved financial institutions are at a disadvantage. And already there is fear that the $349 billion package of federal help for small businesses will run out, and there’s a scramble to get Congress to replenish it.
State and local governments are producing a flurry of helpful programs and websites too. There’s a local hotline for small businesses in Thurston County, 888-821-6552, and a website, https://www.thurstonstrong.org, to answer questions about who’s doing what for whom, and how to apply for various programs.
Also, recognizing that one day we will wake up from this nightmare, Thurston County and its city governments already are gathering to craft a regional long-term recovery plan.
But there is still a deep well of urgent unmet needs for people like Stephanie Mills, and for nonprofits that have had to cancel fundraising events and programs that bring in revenue, like bingo and classes at the Senior Center. Senior Services for South Sound is facing an $80,000 deficit for this month alone. It is struggling to meet a big spike in demand for Meals on Wheels, since seniors can’t come to the center for lunch.
There are bright spots. The Community Foundation of South Puget Sound has teamed up with United Way of Thurston County to create a COVID-19 Response Fund. With money from that fund, the Thurston County Food Bank was able to hire four laid-off restaurant dishwashers to replace house-bound older volunteers, and to help meet the increased demand for food. The Response Fund also already has been able to help Senior Services, Catholic Community Services’ Community Kitchen, and Interfaith Works, and procured emergency supplies for low-income families with small children.
To help people like Stephanie Mills, the Fund is directing money to the Community Action Council. Even here, there may be a frustrating application process. Community Action Council CEO John Walsh acknowledges the difficulty. “Demand has exploded,” he says, “from a whole new population” calling an agency that was already stretched to help people fighting poverty. Applicants who crave a sympathetic human connection will have to navigate the agency’s automated phone tree — and are likely to be asked to leave a message. He advises people to “be persistent, and be patient.”
Persistence and patience do seem to be the order of the day for all those who’ve lost their jobs, or closed or limited their businesses. But they need help right now, while they are waiting for new programs to deliver results.
That’s why generosity from the rest of us is also the order of the day.
Those of us who aren’t broke can donate to the COVID-19 Response Fund, to other nonprofits, or directly to someone who has lost a job.
We also can support endangered local businesses as they find creative ways to stay alive. We can order food for take-out or delivery, so restaurants will survive for their employees to return to.
We can order books from local bookshops, or freshly made gelato delivered to our door. We can get drive-through doughnuts from Twisters.
The tragedy of this pandemic is beyond our control. But we have a superpower: the power to help each other and strengthen the bonds that hold our community together.