The Latino Community Association started its COVID-19 Immigrant Family Relief Fund in early April, and began the application and funding process on April 18. LCA started assisting families by way of paying creditors to cover rent/mortgage, utilities, car payment, etc., up to $750 per family, and then joined the ALO-OWRF Coalition. At that point, they shifted to funding individuals and aligned their process with the ALO-OWRF process. ALO-OWRF began the second week of May. This fund provides up to $1,720 per individual in a one-time cash payment via paypal or check.
Including individual and business donations, as well as grants that are restricted to direct benefit to families, the LCA fund has reached $228,572.
The ALO-OWRF dollars (Alivio Laboral de Oregon-Oregon Worker Relief Fund) are applications they have “navigated” or applied for online in the name of clients who were interviewed by phone.
The Oregon Emergency Board allocated $10 million to the OWRF, which is a coalition of 20+ immigrant-serving community-based organizations (CBOs) across Oregon. The funds are distributed to the Oregon Community Foundation who then granted them to Causa Oregon. Immigration Law Lab has been the administrator of the navigation process, including developing the technology and partnerships with banks, PayPal and others.
Both funds were created to address the fact that the federal government excluded tax-paying unauthorized workers from receiving any benefits from the CARES Act or any other relief packages. Unauthorized, or more commonly, “undocumented” workers, are not eligible for unemployment insurance benefits and were not eligible for the CARES Act stimulus payments. Even worse, the CARES Act was designed such that all of the U.S. Citizen members of a household with just one unauthorized individual (no social security number) were also excluded from receiving stimulus checks. The IRS determined this based on tax returns, meaning tax-paying families that complied with the laws by filing a tax return were excluded from relief. Both funds are directed at supporting these families.
The Emergency Board more recently allocated another $20 million to the OWRF Coalition: $10 million for the worker relief fund and $10 million to support agricultural workers quarantined due to COVID-19. This fund began on August 3 and follows the same process as OWRF, but has different eligibility criteria. It is not limited to unauthorized workers and is specific to workers in agricultural jobs — defined somewhat broadly.
As of August 19, LCA has facilitated financial payments to immigrant families in Central Oregon as follows:
- CA COVID-19 Immigrant Family Relief Fund: $93,855 (136 applicants)
- ALO-OWRF: $1,229,243 (722 applicants)
- OQRF (Oregon Quarantine Relief Fund): $5,160 (4 applicants)
Other main services provided by LCA over the past few months include:
- Financial assistance to Latino-owned small businesses (partnership with COIC): $85,140 (32 businesses)
- Free immigration legal consults (partnership with Immigration Counseling Service)
- Food box distribution mainly in Madras (partnership with Council on Aging and Jefferson County Health)
- PPE distribution (masks and hand sanitizer mainly)
- ITIN (Tax ID) application assistance
- 2020 Census outreach and assistance
