As the nation begins to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, one statistic alone is enough to illustrate how some local communities were already at a disadvantage before a single economic blow was dealt: 76% of Community HousingWorks residents did not have a bank account when the pandemic hit.
Community HousingWorks President Sean Spear said the non-profit, which develops affordable apartment communities with resident-centered services such as the Paradise Creek complex initially thought their residents were faring well as the pandemic hit, based on the fact that local applications for rental assistance were comparatively lower than elsewhere in California.
Then, they realized that difference might be a sign something was amiss.
“In our conversations with residents, we discovered they were making rent because there are so few opportunities to be housed at affordable rent levels, but foregoing food and essentials to do so. We went through an application process and learned quite a few of them were unbanked, meaning they had no relationship with any financial institution,” Spear said.
That realization, he said, highlighted the need to shift financial counseling to thinking in terms of the impact residents were experiencing under COVID like ‘how do people deal with loss of income’ or ‘how do people deal with increased cost of living’.
One resident, he said, is a single parent who described a situation in which the combination of unforeseen job loss while sustaining five children at home on distance learning multiplied the financial impact of the pandemic.
“This resident had to pay for increased bandwidth and had a higher electric bill from charging learning devices for all five kids. The food bill went up because kids had previously been eating lunch at school… What we might see as savings points by being at home are not necessarily the case for everyone,” Spear said.
HousingWorks Director of Advancement Tammy Walz said having a true community means giving residents a sense that ‘it’s going to be okay’ and that staff tried to decrease struggling residents’ stress by walking them through an emergency spending plan while also encouraging them to contact creditors and communicate their needs.
One resident, Silvia Calzada, who initially volunteered in the neighborhood before becoming a board member echoed the importance of a true community, “creating an environment where we know and support our neighbors”.
Although she and other residents banded together with phone lists early in the pandemic to check on whether senior residents had food, they were also “checking on their very souls” as some older neighbors were afraid to go out,” Calzada said.
The neighborhood took about ten years to get to this point, she said, with many people who are on a journey and in need and although she said “there are strong individuals and personal connections in our community,” Calzada stressed it can be hard to ask for help.
“One of the domino effects comes from job loss. If someone loses their income it might affect four or six other family members: you can either pay for rent or food for your family… Having a safe and healthy place to live in is healing; having food is not just a basic necessity, its nourishment for the soul,” Calzada said.
Spear said the organization has a network of financial coaches who “had to dive into coaching on managing changed budgets,” starting from the very basics.
“One thing we did was work to get unbanked residents plugged into financial institutions with direct deposit because otherwise it creates problems like having to wait for a paper check with stimulus support,” Spear said.
Community HousingWorks also created their own Housing and Hunger Relief
Fund to supplement local, state and federal assistance programs and support residents financially impacted by the pandemic.
The relief fund is still seeking donor contributions to raise $1 million to help hundreds of residents.
