In March, as the coronavirus pandemic swept through New York, 48 year-old Maribel lost her job cleaning houses. Her husband lost his job at a restaurant. And their oldest son, who works as an electrician, was also out of work.
Maribel, who doesn’t want us using her full name because she’s an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, said her family of four soon fell behind on the $1,500 monthly rent for their two-bedroom apartment in Staten Island. Without legal status, they didn’t qualify for unemployment or a federal stimulus check.
To get by, Maribel relied on weekly grocery packages from a community organization called La Colmena. She also kept herself busy with her women’s group Mujeres Liderando, making masks for first responders with fabric donated by La Colmena.
“I think that far from feeling sorry for ourselves, we are trying to find a solution to the current situation,” she explained, of the effort.
La Colmena, which is Spanish for a hive or beehive, also stayed busy. Located in a storefront in the Port Richmond neighborhood of Staten Island, the non-profit was created by and for local immigrants in 2014. Executive director Yesenia Mata said the organization did its own urgent fundraising to help members like Maribel who didn’t qualify for government assistance.
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“We were able to get a good amount,” she said, starting with one grant and eventually reaching $120,000. “We were able to distribute that money throughout the community.” Mata said roughly 300 families each received about $400 from the rapid fundraising.
Immigrants have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. They’re more likely to live in tight quarters, ride mass transit and work under the table.
La Colmena is among many community organizations around the city that took fast actiion in response to the pandemic, by raising money for undocumented workers who couldn’t get government aid.
The Queens non profit Chhaya, which serves South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities, raised $105,000 according to Jose Miranda, Jr., the group’s director of economic justice. He said it was distributed to 210 individuals through debit cards and direct deposits, but that thousands more are in need.
In mid April, immigrant advocates learned they’d be getting more help for these efforts. The Open Society Foundations announced a $20 million donation to the city to create a new emergency relief fund for immigrants. It’s managed by the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City in partnership with the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, which selected about 30 community based organizations to distribute the aid.
Those groups include Chhaya and La Colmena. But while these non-profits were able to quickly get money into the hands of day laborers and nannies alike, the $20 million fund is only now starting to reach its first recipients.
Bitta Mostofi, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, said the city moved as fast as it could, but the project was complicated because it involves so many community based organizations.
“All have their own internal tools and infrastructures, all had different needs and we developed everything from scratch,” she explained.
Each organization has to follow the same eligibility requirements. They have to choose immigrants who don’t qualify for any government assistance. Recipients can get between $400 and $1000 dollars depending on family size. The grant will fund 20,000 families. People who already received funds from a local group and who demonstrate continued need would have that amount deducted from their maximum grant.
Mostofi said the city selected the participating organizations carefully. “We knew that they worked with these populations and had solid experiences supporting these communities,” she said. They’ll have discretion to choose the neediest applicants.
She also said the organizations are geographically diverse and serve many types of affected workers and immigrants from around the world. However, the city declined to release the names of the organizations. Mostofi’s spokeswoman cited “the sensitivity of the program” and concerns about “the privacy of the target population,” meaning undocumented immigrants.
To ensure privacy, the groups needed a secure system for collecting personal information about undocumented immgrants. The city said it will not have access to this information.
There were other challenges, said Laine Romero-Alston, team manager for the Open Society Foundations’ Fair Work Program, who is leading the grant to the city. Because many undocumented immigrants don’t have bank accounts, she said the city is using pre-paid debit cards. But that raised questions, including “how to make sure it’s safe, that it’s not gouging them with fees, frankly that the cash cards don't include things like data tracking and surveillance.”
Mostofi said 20,000 debit cards cards were mailed out over the last week to the participating organizations who will then load them with different dollar amounts. Mata, at La Colmera, said she expected to receive hers this week but still has to finish the screening process.
Given the level of desperation among undocumented immigrants, Phil Buchanan, president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, wonders if the funds could have gone out sooner.
“Donors who are trying to do something, they’re well intentioned but they’ve got to move quickly and boldly and with as little bureaucracy as possible,” he said.
Buchanan questioned whether it would have made more sense for the Open Society Foundations to give its $20 million directly to community groups instead of tasking so much to the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, which is tightly connected to City Hall. “I imagine that office is under a considerable amount of pressure as it is,” he noted.
But he also acknowledged the immigrant affairs office knows the landscape of community groups. Romero-Alston said that’s why the Open Society Foundations backed this plan. She also said there are risks of moving too quickly. A fund created by California, with support from OSI, was overwhelmed with phone calls.
Maribel making masks this spring for police, bus drivers and other essential workers
Mostofi said the city wanted to create an infrastructure that can be used for future donations because this $20 million grant is only reaching the tip of the iceberg. She estimates 100,000 of New York City's undocumented immigrants lost jobs during the pandemic. Now that the emergency fund exists, she said it can “get out resources pretty quickly through a networking system.” Another 20 groups were selected to refer people to the organizations screening and delivering the aid
Immigrant advocates are lobbying the city to put some of its own money into the new emergency fund, to reach more people. Mayor Bill de Blasio has said that’s not possible given the deficit created by the pandemic. Governor Andrew Cuomo has said the state also can’t afford to help, unlike California, calling on the federal government to contribute.
But Romero-Alston, of the Open Society Foundations, said the one-time payments provided by the $20 million grant will “go in manner of weeks.”
And with an ongoing crisis, she said there’s a need for additional resources from private donors, individuals, philanthropy and the public sector. “Solutions need to be at scale,” she said.
With translation assistance from Marcos Sueiro Bal.
Beth Fertig is a senior reporter covering immigration, courts, and legal affairs at WNYC. You can follow her on Twitter at @bethfertig.
