April 25, 2020

To the Good People of New York’s 9th Congressional District:

Thank you for keeping up the good fight against this pandemic. We all know that there’s nothing New Yorkers can’t handle. I can’t thank you all enough for the sacrifices you’ve made to practice social distancing to keep our community safe.

This week my offices remain teleworking. If you need my team’s help, you can contact us Monday-Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at (718) 287-1142.

As of this week the number of positive cases in NYC is 146,139. We have lost 10,746 New Yorkers. Below is the borough breakdown of positive cases. More data is available if you click in this link.

Total Hospitalized: 37,995
Queens: 45,313
Brooklyn: 38,727
The Bronx: 32,862
Manhattan: 18,252
SI: 10,917

Many of us have idle time at home as we continue to social distance, which calls for great timing to fill out the to the #Census2020. This process takes less than 10 minutes and can be completed at http://my2020census.gov or through the paper forms you received in the mail. Census data is protected by law and CANNOT be shared with law enforcement. Let’s make Brooklyn count!

For the sake of your safety and good health, please do not inject or ingest disinfectant, cleaning products or bleach as means prevent or reduce coronavirus symptoms.

Let’s continue to flatten this curve as a community.

In good health,

Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke

Updates from Congress:

This week, the House passed an interim emergency funding package that will provide the emergency resources that are desperately needed to sustain the life and death fight to protect the lives and livelihoods of the American people. Democrats flipped this emergency package from an insufficient Republican plan that left behind hospitals and health workers and did nothing to aid the survival of the most vulnerable small businesses on Main Street.
We have achieved an agreement that follows the path set by the bipartisan CARES Act with real support:

For small businesses: we have strengthened the Paycheck Protection Program with $310 billion in additional funding, with $30 billion reserved for community-based lenders, small banks and credit unions and $30 billion for medium-sized banks and credit unions. We are expanding small business support beyond PPP by securing $50 billion for SBA disaster lending, translating into more than $350 billion in loans, and $10 billion in SBA disaster grants. We have also secured strong protections to ensure that our nation’s farmers have access to this vital assistance.
For hospitals and health care workers: Democrats have secured $75 billion to provide resources to the frontlines, including Personal Protective Equipment. The Administration has also agreed to key improvements to be made in CARES 2, including significantly lowering the interest rate on advance payments, lengthening the repayment schedule and distributing payments from general revenues not the Hospital Insurance Fund.
For all Americans: we have secured $25 billion for testing, which is the key to reopening the economy and resuming our lives. The Administration has agreed to a national strategic testing policy that will focus on increasing domestic testing capacity including testing supplies.

Sadly, in the interim bill, the Administration refused to agree to more funding for state, tribal and local governments on the front lines of this crisis who desperately need an infusion of funds to pay the workers who keep us safe.
The House of Representatives is forming a special bipartisan oversight panel: the House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis.

This panel will root out waste, fraud and abuse, and it will protect against price gouging and profiteering.
It will also press to ensure that the federal response is based on the best possible science and guided by our nation’s leading health experts.
The committee will be empowered to examine all aspects of the federal response to the coronavirus to ensure that taxpayer dollars are being wisely and efficiently.

Recent Democratic accomplishments:

For fighting the coronavirus, Democrats fought for and won a $200 billion investment in hospitals, health systems and health research, and $150 billion for state and local governments in this agreement, to give them the resources they desperately need during this emergency.
For our workers, we secured a massive $260 billion investment in Unemployment Insurance benefits to match the average paycheck of laid-off or furloughed workers. We secured an additional 13 weeks of federally-funded benefits to be made available immediately and defeated Republicans’ cruel last-minute attempt to claw back the $600 in expanded Unemployment Insurance. Democrats achieved full direct payments for workers, ensuring working class families are eligible to receive as much as $3,400 for a family of four.
For our small businesses, we won a $377 billion infusion of fast relief for those in need, including securing $10 billion for SBA emergency grants of up to $10,000 and making payroll costs, rent, mortgage interest and utility costs eligible for SBA loan forgiveness.
For our students, we secured more than $30 billion in emergency education funding, paused payments for federal student loan borrowers and suspended wage garnishment and negative credit reporting during this time.
For accountability and oversight, we prevented secret bailouts and added special oversight requirements to ensure that any taxpayer dollars given to industry go first and foremost to workers’ paychecks and benefits, not used for CEO bonuses, stock buybacks or dividends.
House Democrats took the first step, passing a bipartisan emergency response funding package of $8.3 billion of entirely new funds — focusing on testing:

Commits more than $3 billion to the development of treatments and a vaccine available to all, and protects against price-gouging of medicines developed with taxpayer dollars.
Provides $2.2 billion in prevention, preparedness and response measures, including nearly a billion dollars to help state, local, tribal and territorial health systems.
Helps families by extending telemedicine services, regardless of where they live and supports small businesses, with billions in low-interest SBA loans to those affected.

We moved quickly to follow up by passing the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which:

For families’ health security: this legislation ensures free coronavirus testing for everyone who needs a test, including the uninsured. Our legislation also increases funding for Medicaid to support local, state, tribal and territorial health systems, so that they have the resources needed to combat this public health emergency.
For families’ economic security: our bill provides two weeks of paid sick leave and up to three months of family and medical leave for eligible workers and enhances Unemployment Insurance. It also supports small businesses by fully reimbursing them for providing leave.
For families’ food security: our legislation strengthens nutrition initiatives including SNAP, student meals, seniors’ meals and food banks.

House Democrats have prepared a comprehensive toolkit for how the CARES Act will benefit communities across America, available in both English and Spanish.

CARES 2 must provide strong support for these essential workers so that they can get paid. It must also meet workers’ needs with OSHA protections for safety in the workplace, family and medical leave, increased SNAP, full funding for COBRA and a Special Enrollment Period for those without health insurance, and pension support, more Unemployment Insurance and direct payments for those who are struggling.

Congresswoman Clarke’s Legislative Updates:

I’m proud to join the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Joaquin Castro and over 100 of our colleagues in writing Leader McConnell to request that he brings my bill, H.R. 6- the Dream and Promise Act for a vote in the Senate. H.R. 6 provides a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients and temporary protected status/deferred enforced departure. Now more than ever, we must ensure the livelihood of our immigrant community is stable and secure.
I came together with Brooklyn’s Black elected officials (at all levels) to call on Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio to implement a sweeping revitalization plan directed to the Black communities who have suffered the most harm from COVID-19. The proposed Elizabeth Jennings Graham Community Investment Plan, known as the Lizzie Plan would seek to involve the Black community in the public response to the crisis and include plans for data collection, testing, personal protective equipment and more.
I’m proud to join Senator Mazie Hirono as an original co-sponsor of the Coronavirus Immigrant Families Act. Nearly 1.7 million immigrants are healthcare workers and millions more are essential workers, risking their lives everyday to save others. This bill will ensure that everyone can access critical coronavirus relief benefits and health services.
This week I joined Congressman Lloyd Doggett and our colleagues in writing a letter to Speaker Pelosi urging her to fight to keep maintenance of effort (MOE) provisions included in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act in the next relief package. With nearly 30 million uninsured patients prior to this crisis and millions filing for unemployment each week across the country, it is vital that we protect the Medicaid program from destructive cuts.
I’m a proud co-signer of Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez’s letter to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to request that they direct additional resources from the CARES Act to ensure our nursing homes are equipped to combat this pandemic. This letter is co-signed by a group of bipartisan New York Members of Congress.
I joined Congressman Bobby Rush and 83 of our Democratic colleagues to demand that the EPA secures equal rights to clean air protections. Air pollution not only contributes to the climate crisis, it is also linked to the lethality of coronavirus within vulnerable communities, like NY-09.

NYC & NYS Updates:

The NYS Department of Labor launched a new streamlined application for New Yorkers to apply for pandemic unemployment assistance without having to first apply for unemployment insurance.

For additional info: https://www.labor.ny.gov/ui/pdfs/pua-factsheet.pdf

NYC is assisting New Yorkers by delivering meals to those who cannot access food themselves:. Visit here: https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dsny/contact/services/COVID-19FoodAssistance.shtml or call 311.
The NYC COVID-19 Engagement Portal is a confidential new way to self-report coronavirus information to help stop the spread and get the facts. Sign up at https://cv19engagementportal.cityofnewyork.us/#/display/5e63c34ff75d7a02111fcb6c.
In order to get additional people out of jail during the COVID crisis and in response to the state bail law which outlines the use of electronic monitoring as one of the non-monetary release conditions that may be used to ensure return to Court, NYC is beginning an electronic monitoring program Monday for the pre-trial population.

This was launched earlier this week and will be monitored by the Sheriff, and working to expand to 150 defendants by summer.
Per bail statute, electronic monitors can only be used for felony charges, or a misdemeanor charge and a conviction within the past 5 years on a felony - the intention is to target people who otherwise would be in jail and allow them to remain in the community.
During the COVID crisis, the mandate for electronic monitoring will be home detention, with time allowed for exercise and purchase of supplies and allowance for approved activities such as access to health care or employment.

People's locations will be tracked only when there is notice that they have violated the conditions of the monitor, and data will ultimately be anonymized with data privacy protections put in place.

The monitors will be available at both arraignment and for people currently at Rikers, and the DA's and defenders will be part of the process for determination of use.
Additionally, we are working on an electronic monitoring program for city-sentenced individuals, to allow a subsection of people who otherwise would be in jail to be released safely to the community. This program would be overseen by the Department of Probation and is also set to launch shortly, with more details to follow.

For all programs, re-entry, case management and other supportive services will be made available.
Starting in May, NYC will produce up to 50,000 tests a week, right here in New York City. This will help us finally begin to expand testing to communities that need it most. EDC is building new supply chain and pulling pieces from all over city:

Academic & commercial labs –producing the liquid solution
Local manufacturers and 3-D printers making testing swabs and tubes
Starting production at beginning of May
If you know an academic or research lab, manufacturer, pharmaceutical, research university, or chemical company who can help -- please have them email [email protected].

Additional Testing: Aria Diagnostics, based in Carmel, Indiana is donating 50,000 kits and NYCEDC will be purchasing 50,000 kits per week.

Get My Payment says that my Economic Impact Payment was sent to an account I don’t recognize. Why is that, and how do I get my payment?

When some taxpayers file their tax return, they may choose an option available from their tax preparer or software provider to help them pay their fees, get their refund more quickly or even load the refund onto a direct debit card. This group of different products is referred to as refund settlement products. In these situations, taxpayers may:

Use a banking product to help them complete the tax filing transaction, sometimes referred to as a Refund Anticipation Loan (RAL) or a Refund Anticipation Check (RAC).
Choose to have their tax refund loaded onto a debit card provided by a variety of groups in the tax and financial communities.

IRS Updates:

The IRS updated their “Get My Payment” FAQ document to address certain challenges with the EIP impacting your constituents.
Tips below:

When you filed your tax return, if you chose a refund settlement product for direct deposit purposes, you may have received a prepaid debit card. In some cases, your Economic Impact Payment may have been directed to the bank account associated with the refund settlement product or prepaid debit card.
If the refund settlement product or the associated account is closed or no longer active, the bank is required to reject the deposit and return it to the IRS. The “Get My Payment” app will be updated once the returned payment to the IRS is processed. Timing of this process depends on several variables, including when and how the payments are rejected and returned to the IRS, when “Get My Payment” updates, and when taxpayers check the tool.
Once the returned payment is processed by the IRS, the payment will automatically be mailed to the address on the 2019 or 2018 tax return, or the address on file with the U.S. Postal Service – whichever is more current, and the status in Get My Payment will update accordingly.
The IRS also noted that there was a reporting error that started showing up in recent days on Get My Update, which inaccurately indicated rejected payments were being sent back to the same taxpayer account a second time. They are actually being mailed to the taxpayers. The IRS has quickly taken steps to correct this reporting error. Get My Payment will be updated starting Tuesday, April 21 to reflect that the taxpayer’s payment has actually been mailed; not rerouted to a closed bank account.
View the full FAQ sheet here: https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus/get-my-payment-frequently-asked-questions#bank