Philanthropist creates fund for those most affected by the coronavius and immigrants "excluded" from federal aid

George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist and financier, is donating $130 million to help at-risk populations impacted by the coronavirus, including Hispanic immigrant families and low-wage workers in the United States who are performing “essential” jobs during the pandemic.

“We’re going to work to get cash immediately in the hands of people who desperately need it, many of whom our societies are finally recognizing for their essentialness and many who are being excluded from federal emergency support,” Patrick Gaspard, the president of the Open Society Foundations, told Univision.

The Open Society historically has focused on human and civil rights issues around the world, seeking to protect vulnerable communities by holding governments to account.

“This moment of the coronavirus compels us to make a pivot from not just the work we do around structural long term policy but also in taking up some humanitarian interventions on behalf of those now deemed essential [workers] in global economies,” said Gaspard, who served as U.S. ambassador to South Africa during the Obama administration and is a former union activist in New York.

He cited a famous phrase of civil rights leader, Dr Martin Luther King: “in times of strife one must go to the centers of the greatest amount of pain.”

20 cities

With that in mind, Open Society Foundations, is working with vulnerable communities in 20 U.S. cities, including two large grants to nonprofits linked to the government of New York City, which is the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, with more than 24,000 deaths because of the virus.

The foundation is contributing $12 million to relief funds in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington.

In New York, a $20 million grant will be used to create an Immigrant Emergency Relief Program in partnership with the city to provide direct, one-time payments to up to 20,000 immigrant families who are excluded from the federal relief program.

The $130 million, half of which is being spent in other needy countries, is only an “initial investment” from the foundation, Gaspard said.

Soros, and the league of billionaires

Soros, an 89-year-old Hungarian-born hedge fund tycoon who began life working on railways and as a waiter, shifted $18 billion from his fortune to the Open Society Foundations in 2018.

He is one of a number of philanthropists around the world who have begun donating to causes related to the coronavirus crisis. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, has said he will give $100 million to American food banks.

Jack Dorsey, the chief executive and co-founder of Twitter, has said he is setting aside $1 billion for charity; $7 million has been distributed so far for coronavirus-related causes.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged $250 million for a variety of causes, including the search for a coronavirus vaccine, also backed by Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan.

“The scale of this pandemic has laid bare the fault lines and injustices of our world,” Soros said in a statement. “We missed the opportunity to create a more just economy after the financial crisis of 2008 and provide a social safety net for the workers who are the heart of our societies.

“Today, we must change direction and ask ourselves: What kind of world will emerge from this catastrophe, and what can we do to make it a better one?”

Three Goals

Gaspard said the Open Society Foundations had three goals in its coronavirus funding: to get cash immediately in the hands of people excluded from federal emergency support; supporting efforts to get key social actors, including politicians, to stand up for ‘essential workers’, especially undocumented immigrants, and to strengthen the power of local community-based organizations, such as the National Domestic Workers Alliance, which represents homecare workers.

“We hope our support will help communities be resilient and push back against inequitable policies. We when we push past covid-19 they will be greater strength in those communities. There is a sense that policy could be different on the back end of this,” said Gaspard.

Federal assistance

Currently, much of the promised federal assistance was not getting into the right hands.

The initial $350 billion ‘Paycheck Protection Program,’ or PPP, set up by the Congress in March as part of the CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) act, to offer support for small businesses amid the coronavirus pandemic, was swiftly spent after many big companies tapped the aid.

“Those of us who have the means to help somehow really have to double down at this moment,” said Gaspard.

While immigrant communities in the U.S. give back an estimated $400 billion in taxes to cities, states, and the federal government, “they basically are being written out of policy in Washington DC that’s intended to help Americans rebound in this moment,” he said.

Meanwhile, nearly two thirds of Latinos have lost jobs or have seen significant drop in wages.

About 35% of Hispanics indicated that someone in the household had lost their job due to the coronavirus and 29% of employers affirmed that their businesses suffered a loss of income amid the public health crisis, according to a survey carried out by Latino Decisions and the network of multilingual health providers, SOMOS.

Among those who kept their jobs, 46% said they have suffered a wage cut and 43% had trouble meeting rent or mortgage payments.

"The great reveal"

The disproportionate burden was starkly evident in the zip codes most impacted by the virus, Gaspard highlighted. In New York, the top five zip codes with the highest level of contagion had medium incomes of around $25,000 a year, while the zip codes with lowest contagion earned more than $110,000.

“This moment I call the great reveal, we are seeing the curtain has been pulled back,” he said.

Nowhere was that more clear than in the disproportionate number of African-Americans who have died from the virus, or the thousands of immigrant workers infected in meat packing plants.

“The president has had to stand behind the podium and acknowledge publicly to the entire nation and world, that communities of color in the United States have been particularly inflicted with this illness and with job loss because of inequalities that predated the surfacing of covid-19 in these communities,” said Gaspard.

Recognizing immigrant labor in the meat packing plants as “essential” to the nation’s food supply, mean it was doubly important to make sure they get financial support and recognition for the vital role they play.

“These people, now deemed essential are basically being ordered to work without proper provision in place to ensure their safety. It’s inhumane is what it is,” he added.