NYC businesses and employees turn to GoFundMe for relief

As state labor officials work through a flood of unemployment claims and the federal government considers cutting each American a check, some city businesses and workers are launching coronavirus relief efforts of their own.
That includes a popular beer bar, The Double Windsor in Brooklyn, which has a staff of about 20 when business is running as usual. With coronavirus restrictions stripping operations down to takeout and delivery only, the bar’s staff is down to four. The rest of the workers were let go.

“We had been hoping a few weeks ago we might be looking at a two-week shutdown and we could bite the bullet and pay everyone’s salary,” said Eric Horowitz, a partner with the restaurant. “It very quickly became much bigger than that, and it became something we couldn’t even consider. We had to tell them there were no more shifts.”

Horowitz frets over how long the bar can survive on food sales only.

He also was worried about how his former employees would make ends meet. Tuesday afternoon he launched a GoFundMe page for them, and in less than 24 hours, the page exceeded its $10,000 goal.

“We’ve had a lot of regular customers [and] friends but also some names I don’t know,” Horowitz said of the GoFundMe donors. “I’m blown away by the whole thing.”
The Double Windsor is not alone in turning to social-media giving to ease the pain for the nearly 200,000 workers in New York’s nightlife industry, a significant number of whom will be out of work for as long as New York practices social distancing.
GoFundMe’s homepage has a link to the long list of funding pages started in response to Covid-19. Several have raised thousand of Euros to help Italian hospitals. In this country, and in New York specifically, many of the efforts are designed to help hourly workers get by during the pandemic, while the government works through economic-relief proposals.
At Standings in the East Village, staff typically would be gearing up for March Madness crowds. The NCAA called off the tournament, though, and employees there have launched a “virtual tip jar,” as described on a GoFundMe page that raised $7,800 in its first five days.
The Cinema Worker Solidarity Fund, launched three days ago, has raised $52,500 toward its $62,000 goal. Every $3,000 donated can support a week’s salary for five hourly cinema employees, according to the page.

In one of the more ambitious efforts, chef and restaurateur Philippe Massoud on Sunday launched the Restaurant Employees Relief Effort, which has raised $6,295 toward its $400,000 goal. The money, he wrote, will fund a distribution network to provide food, diapers and other necessities to out-of-work restaurant employees.
“I cannot sit idly by and not act on behalf of our collective staffs,” wrote Massoud, who owns ilili in Midtown.
More comprehensive help will have to come from the government. New York is working through a massive influx of unemployment claims that crashed its website this week. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin warned Tuesday that without a trillion-dollar aid package, unemployment could reach 20% during the pandemic.
A GoFundMe effort is only a “Band-Aid,” as Horowitz described it.

“Will it save these people? No,” he said. “It will help them in the short run. But if this becomes months and months and months, well, everyone is in trouble.”

https://www.crainsnewyork.com/coronavirus/businesses-and-employees-turn-gofundme-relief