Video shows packed crowds in Hialeah waiting to pick up paper unemployment forms

Scores of people, many wearing masks but with little distance between them despite concerns about COVID-19, stood in line Tuesday morning outside the John F. Kennedy Library in Hialeah waiting to pick up paper unemployment forms.

Footage from the scene drew immediate criticism from local officials.

“The [mayor’s] administration has implemented a program that puts people at great risk for spreading this virus,” Hialeah Council President Paul Hernandez told the Miami Herald. “This is an example of good intentions but poor planning.”

Miami-Dade County Commissioner Esteban Bovo, who recently worked to bring a drive-thru coronavirus testing site to Hialeah, called the video “extremely concerning” in a post on Twitter.

“I expect the [city] to react quickly to fix this situation. Residents need to do their part,” Bovo said.

Hialeah officials had announced Monday that they were setting up four sites around the city where residents could retrieve forms, as people continue to struggle to access Florida’s flawed unemployment website in the midst of widespread layoffs due to the novel coronavirus. The process to get the forms began Tuesday at 11 a.m.

At least two of the sites were set up as drive-thrus Tuesday, with people staying in their cars. Images from Slade Park on West 74th Street and from Goodlet Park on West Eighth Avenue, where Mayor Carlos Hernández was stationed, showed cars lined up.

But the JFK Library site was a much different scene around 11 a.m., according to video posted on Twitter by Hatzel Vela of WPLG. Although some residents were given forms from their car windows, many others arrived on foot and stood in line.

Mayor Hernández told the Herald that hundreds of people had started lining up as early as 7 a.m., even though city officials told residents the four sites were intended as drive-thrus. He said some residents also showed up on foot to the city’s site at Babcock Park, but the library posed the greatest problem.

“We kept instructing people this is for vehicles only,” Hernández said, adding that 2,500 forms had already been distributed across the four sites by 11 a.m. “There were people here that did not have a vehicle.”

Hernández said police told people to “step back” to enforce social distancing rules, and that some were upset that officers were asking them to do so. One resident who posted pictures on Twitter from the scene said people were “fighting with the police and cornering everyone who had the [unemployment] packets.”

Each person was allowed to take one packet of unemployment forms.

By around noon, the situation at the library was calmer, with everyone retrieving their forms by car and police turning away some people who arrived on foot.

Hernández initially said Tuesday that, on Wednesday, people wouldn’t necessarily be turned away if they came by foot, but that officials would keep an eye on the situation. But in a new post on social media around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, the city said people “must be in a vehicle to receive the unemployment application.”

“If you do not meet these requirements, unfortunately, you will not be served,” the city’s post said.

Starting Wednesday, the event at the four sites in Hialeah will begin at 10 a.m. instead of 11 a.m. and will again run until 3 p.m.

The city took on the effort to provide in-person unemployment forms in conjunction with Florida House Speaker José Oliva, state Sen. Manny Diaz and state Rep. Bryan Avila.

“Due to overwhelming demand with the need for unemployment benefits, the City of Hialeah ... will be opening 4 locations to give unemployment applications and assistance to all who are in need to apply,” the city said in a social media post Monday.

Asked about the situation during a press conference Tuesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis suggested that restricting people to their cars may be a good solution.

“Please do it in a way that doesn’t contribute to spreading this disease. Be careful,” he said. “Spread out, do it in a way that’s orderly.”

Access to services during the coronavirus crisis has been limited for people without cars in South Florida. Many testing sites are drive-thru only, as are some food distribution events that have provided meals to hundreds of people.

Miami-Dade County is planning to distribute paper unemployment forms at two dozen libraries across the county starting Wednesday.

Miami Herald staff reporter Samantha J. Gross contributed to this report.

This story was originally published April 7, 2020 at 12:29 PM.