Dear John,

I spent a bunch of time on the phone last week with some of the beloved small businesses in our community. A few of my favorite book stores and bakeries and craft shops and restaurants, and I know some of yours too. Their stories were agonizing. They’ve invested their life savings, worked dawn till dusk, built something treasured. But now the rent bills and loan payments and insurance premiums are piling up, with no revenue to cover any of it.

Over and over, I heard that relief efforts just aren’t working for them. Few have gotten approved for funds from the federal Paycheck Protection Program. Many of the smallest, immigrant or minority-owned businesses didn’t have the preexisting lending relationships with banks that were needed to get quick approval.

Maybe even worse, those who did get PPP grants can’t make use of them. The program is intended to help employers retain or rehire their workers, which makes sense. But the rules require businesses to rehire workers within 8 weeks, and pay their workers before June 30th. That might work in a place like Georgia, where they are already (too soon) opening back up. But businesses here in Brooklyn can’t rehire until they can re-open. So many businesses who did receive PPP awards can’t use them.

Congress could easily fix this. Extending the deadline for re-opening and hiring back up would not even cost any additional money. I’ve talked to Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez and she agrees. Unfortunately, the GOP has so far refused to make the changes. It’s almost like they don’t mind that New York businesses received about half as much funding as businesses in states like Nebraska and Kansas.

The best solution would be to adopt the Paycheck Guarantee Act, proposed by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, which would fuse together unemployment insurance with small business support to enable our small businesses to survive while they’re closed or diminished (I loved hearing her talk about it and much more on The Ezra Klein Show).

But there’s also a much simpler fix, that would not cost an additional dime: just extend the 8-week rule and the June 30th deadline until the end of the year.

Together with Council Member Keith Powers, I’m organizing a letter from City Council Members to Congress, calling for them to fix the PPP to work for our small businesses. Will you sign this petition to join us?

In the gap left by federal inaction, the City Council held a hearing last week on proposals to reduce some burdens on small businesses, including capping Seamless/Grubhub fees at 10% so restaurants are able to keep more of their sales, waiving sidewalk cafe fees, and cancelling personal liability clauses that but owners homes and personal property at risk. I support these bills, but they are no real substitute for a federal funding program that works.

The economic crisis sparked by this pandemic is going to be with us for a while. It’s going to take real creativity to save the small businesses that make our neighborhoods special. I loved seeing pictures of restaurants from Wuhan to Atlanta operating outdoors in the streets, where physical distancing is easier. I hope we can do that here.

Do you have other ideas for how we can act to save our small businesses? I’d love to hear them. Feel free to ask one of your favorite small businesses owners, and let me know their ideas here.

In the meantime, continue to support local businesses in our community however you can. Try ordering directly from restaurants rather than through apps. Use Locally to buy online from local shops. And use IndieBound or go directly to their websites to support our amazing local bookstores (Books Are Magic, Community Bookstore, Powerhouse on 8th, Greenlight, and Terrace Books). Seriously, how many other places five independent bookstores in walking distance?

Brad

In this email:
City and State Updates
Upcoming Calls

City and State Updates

Latest impacts: More than 18,900 people have died from the virus in the last two months, and more than 43,000 have been hospitalized. The hospitalization rate is going down, but ICUs are still twice as busy as normal and there are still hundreds of New Yorkers dying every day, leaving behind devastated families.
Social distancing compliance: Warmer weather over the weekend brought New Yorkers out in droves to parks, prompting a lot of concern about attentiveness to social distancing and a lot of criticism of the disparities in NYPD enforcement and aggressive police behavior. More effective methods of public education to achieve collective compliance with social distancing encouragement will be needed. The City is going to ramp up its distribution of masks, planning to hand out 7.5 million at parks, meal sites, and stores over the next few weeks.
Teaming up for PPE: Yesterday, Governor Cuomo announced a multi-state agreement to develop a regional supply chain for personal protective equipment, other medical equipment and testing, with the governors of New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Massachusetts.
Schools to stay closed: All K-12 schools and universities are now officially going to be closed for the rest of the academic year. The state will make a decision about summer school programming by the end of May. Schools will be required to create reopening plans for the fall that plan for maintaining student safety and monitoring the spread of the virus.
Hiring Contract Tracers: New York State and New York City are now accepting applications for people to become contact tracers, a critical role to get us through the next phase of this crisis. NYS is hiring for contact tracer, team supervisor and community support specialist and NYC is hiring for several positions as well.
Reopening timelines: The Governor announced that if upstate regions meet the conditions for declining cases, some may be able to start the first phase of reopening on May 15th. It’s going to be a lot longer before NYC is ready to reopen.

Upcoming Calls

Tuesday, May 5 at 6:30 PM: CB6 Community check in with elected officials. Register here.
Join Brooklyn’s Community Board 6 for a community check in about the COVID Crisis and updates from City agencies and Brooklyn electeds.

Thursday, May 7 at 2 PM: Justice in Action conversation series with Ruth Messinger. Register here.

I am the co-host of a weekly conversation series organized by the Marlene Meyerson JCC on how social justice issues are being affected by the pandemic, with former Manhattan Borough President and community leader Ruth Messinger. We’ve had conversations with fantastic guests on immigrant rights, housing and homelessness, the situation in our jails and prisons, and more. You can watch previous versions of the series and learn about ways to take action here. This week we’ll be talking about the NYC Essential Workers Bill of Rights, and hearing from some workers organizations. Sign up here.

Thursday, May 7 at 7 PM: Briefing on COVID-19 Relief Resources for Freelancers. Register here.

Join us for an overview of COVID-19 relief resources available to freelancers, including updated information about applying for unemployment/PUA, rent, and more. Hosted by Councilmember Brad Lander and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, speakers will include attorney Nicole Salk of Legal Services, and Rob Piechota from the Small Business Administration, and Divya Sundaram from Community Voices Heard and the Housing Justice for All Coalition.