LB Economic Relief Package

LONG BEACH On April 15, the Long Beach City Council unanimously adopted 25 individual actions related to a historic local Economic Relief Package designed to help working families and small business owners impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The programs will help working families and small business owners address the following critical needs, among others:
-To fill gaps in federal supplemental sick leave policy, the City Attorney will draft an ordinance requiring Long Beach employers with more than 500 employees nationwide to provide supplemental sick leave.
-To help impacted hotels and motels, creating a Hospitality Recovery Task Force to develop a plan to develop strategies for the recovery of visitors, business travel, leisure tourism and overnight stay rooms in Long Beach.
-To help mortgage-holders partner with nonprofits to promote state and federal foreclosure protection programs, and work with nonprofit economic development or community development corporations to develop a mortgage assistance program.
-To assist hotel and janitorial workers who have been laid off, the City Attorney will draft an ordinance to provide worker retention and recall policies.
-To provide working capital to local small businesses and non-profit organizations unable to secure federal loans, the City approved the creation of a new Emergency Microloan Program.
-To protect the health of both customers and workers, the City Health Officer established new protocols including a new user-friendly small business checklist to be posted at all essential businesses by April 15.
-To reach more residents with information about support services in a variety of languages, the City will expand its Language Access Program.
-To safely assist people under self-quarantine, with a priority on older people. City management will continue to offer current resources and expanding on opportunities to help those in need, especially people over 60 years old.
-To make these programs more accessible to local workers and small business owners, the City offers many resources, including:

A hotline, 562-570-INFO (4636), for general COVID-19 questions
A hotline, 562-570-4BIZ (4249), for businesses and workers
A new website for businesses and workers
A website for COVID-19 informational resources
A website for business and worker resources

-To collect and distribute donations to organizations helping people affected by COVID-19, the City created the Long Beach Disaster Relief Fund, in partnership with the Long Beach Community Foundation.
-To connect people who want to volunteer their time or resources to help others in quarantine, a new Volunteer website has been established.
The City will continue to update these resources by:
-Continuing to seek grants and donations to benefit local non-profits to promote the diversity of fresh food or other goods to those in quarantine.
-Adding resources to the call center and web page.
-Promoting partnerships with local non-profit organizations to stay connected with people in quarantine.