During the Thomas Fire in late 2017 and the debris flow that followed, United Way of Santa Barbara County and the Santa Barbara Foundation formed a partnership to provide financial assistance to individuals and nonprofits in need.
Earlier this year, during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the organizations restarted this partnership along with the Hutton Parker Foundation to create what they’re calling the COVID-19 Joint Response Effort for Santa Barbara County. But the task to provide assistance during the current crisis is larger in economic and geographic scale, United Way President and CEO Steve Ortiz said.
“It’s a countywide response as opposed to the last one, which was just the South Coast,” Ortiz said. “We’re seeing a deeper impact with people losing jobs … and people are trying to make ends meet.”
Through this effort, the organizations are raising money that they can then provide to individuals who have been financially affected by the pandemic. The funding is also used to provide grants to nonprofits that assist vulnerable populations. As of April 30, the organizations raised about $2.7 million through this effort, Ortiz said.
The United Way is working with the Family Service Agency to handle the individual side of this effort. People can apply online for help paying for rent or groceries, and the agencies will review the application and verify some of the details before providing financial assistance ranging from $300 to $1,000.
Oritz said the organizations had received more than 1,600 requests for individual assistance as of April 30, which is more people than they can help at the moment. He said most of the people applying for help are doing so because they need to pay rent after losing some of their wages. The second most significant need people reference is money for food.
“We learned of one family who was walking 3 miles to get to a food bank because they don’t have money for gas for their car,” Ortiz said.
The Santa Barbara and Hutton Parker foundations are handling the nonprofit side of the effort. Nonprofits engaged in providing assistance during the crisis or that have reduced service because of the virus and need general operating support to stay afloat can apply for grants worth up to $25,000, Santa Barbara Foundation Director of Communications Jordan Killebrew said.
As of April 30, nearly 60 nonprofits received grant funding through this effort since it started. But with about 2,000 nonprofits in the county, the amount of funding requested exceeds what the organizations have received so far in this effort, Killebrew said.
“We need to retain and keep as many of these agencies as possible so that we can start to rebuild and have a stronger social sector after all of this,” Killebrew said.
Given the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic and unclear timeline on when people will return to a sense of normalcy, Hutton Parker President Tom Parker said this effort is a long-term one. Even after businesses open up and people go back to work, they’ll still need help, he said.
“The people most distressed are the ones who didn’t have the savings in the bank and the ability to do that,” Parker said. “So help is going to have to continue for a while, and it should—that’s what we’re here for.”
This article appears in May 7-14, 2020.