Within 1 hour, thousands applied for Miami’s financial relief. Two programs closed.
Mileyka Burgos-Flores spent her weekend urging barbers, mechanics, hair stylists, retailers and restaurateurs to gather their business documents so she could get them some much-needed money.
As executive director of the Allapattah Collaborative Community Development Corp., she was preparing to assist 25 proprietors in filling out online applications for financial assistance programs available through the city government. Applications were set to open at noon Monday.
At midday, the flood came. She logged on to a city website that loaded slowly and sometimes crashed. She managed to complete two applications before the city hit its limit for one of the grant programs — less than an hour later.
“It was crazy,” she said. “This shows the level of need in the community.”
Miami’s city government quickly reached capacity for two financial assistance programs for businesses, and thousands of applications were pouring in for a third fund to help renters. The unexpectedly heavy influx of people seeking help, most within an hour of the program opening, is a stark illustration of the financial struggles people are facing during the coronavirus pandemic.
Miami administrators are using more than $3 million in federal funding to distribute loans and grants to residential tenants and business owners within city limits who have been impacted by the economic downturn amid the COVID-19 crisis.
The city began accepting applications online and over the phone at noon Monday. By 1 p.m., the city had received more than 10,000 applications across the three programs. The load of applicants for two funds to help businesses quickly hit the administration’s limit.
A third program to help residents pay rent and utility bills was receiving thousands of applications each hour. The city can accept 10,000 applications that meet criteria for the rental assistance program. In the first hour, administrators had received nearly 5,000 applications that met the requirements. More than 20,000 submitted applications by midafternoon.
At around 2:45 p.m., Mayor Francis Suarez sent a tweet that suggested the city had reached capacity for all three programs. In a video, he said, “Within an hour, we reached our limit of applications.”
“Everyone who qualifies will enter a lottery to determine the residents and businesses for each individual help program,” he said.
Suarez later told the Miami Herald the tweet was sent inadvertently. As of 4:45 p.m., the city was still accepting applications for the rent and utility program.
The city is using $1 million in federal grants to provide small business loans and grants for micro-enterprises.
Both business aid funds quickly hit their limits. As of 12:45 p.m., the city had received around 370 applications for the small business loans ranging from $5,000 to $20,000, meant to aid establishments with 20 or fewer employers. By the same time, around 280 micro-enterprises, with five or fewer employees, had applied for grants of up to $10,000.
For renters, the city created the $2.2 million program to provide one-time payments of up to $1,500 on behalf of people who have lost jobs during the pandemic and need help paying rent or gas, electric and water bills. For tenants who qualify, the city plans to make payments directly to landlords and utility companies.
The city is using federal grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to fund all three programs.
Financial concerns are mounting for South Floridians struggling to pay their bills, including the estimated 55,000 renters who were already living paycheck to paycheck when the pandemic shuttered the economy and led to massive job losses. Statistics show the majority of those renters managed to pay at least a portion of their April rent, but the outlook gets bleaker as stay-at-home orders remain in place and businesses stay closed.
“We’ve been contacted by quite a few families who have lost their incomes,” said Jeffrey Hearne, an attorney at Legal Services of Greater Miami Inc., which provides free civil legal services to low-income residents. “So many people are not able to meet their financial obligations.”
This article has been updated to reflect that applications for the financial assistance programs for businesses were quickly closed and that applications for the rent and utility aid were still open Monday afternoon. An earlier version of this story was based on a tweet that Miami Mayor Francis Suarez sent by mistake.
This story was originally published May 4, 2020 at 3:12 PM.
