During the COVID19 pandemic, Texas Impact is working to resource faith communities so they can focus on maintaining community and serving vulnerable neighbors.

Need information or have a resource you’d like us to share?

Email Scott@texasimpact.org

One of the most important sources of assistance for faith communities is the new Payroll Protection Program (PPP). The PPP provides “loans” that will not have to be paid back as long as they are used for payroll and other core needs—essentially turning them into grants.

Download a sample application form for the PPP

The PPP loan program will be open for applications beginning Friday, April 3, according to the White House. There is a limited pool of funds available, and indications they will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Therefore, it is important for faith communities to make preparations as soon as possible, including collecting documentation needed to complete the application; identifying a lender; and taking any necessary internal steps such as votes of congregational boards.

You may have heard the PPP loans referred to as “SBA” loans. SBA stands for Small Business Administration—the federal agency that oversees the loans. To apply for a PPP, you will need to go through a bank that is approved by the SBA to make the loans. There are many websites where you can find information about SBA lenders in your area; here is one: 

https://www.sbalenders.com/top-sba-lenders-texas/

These loans are also called “CARES Act” loans. The CARES Act is the legislation Congress passed on March 27 that establishes many supports for individuals and businesses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. There are several supports available for faith communities and their members in the CARES Act. Some of them are administered through the SBA, such as the PPP. Others are tax benefits. Texas Impact plans to provide additional links and information about these other forms of support in future emails.

MORE DETAILS

As set forth in the CARES Act, PPP loans can be up to $10 million, and only can be used to meet payroll and associated costs, health insurance premiums, facilities costs and debt service. 

•     General Eligibility: Available to entities that existed on March 1, 2020 and had paid employees.
•     Nonprofit Eligibility: Available for charitable nonprofits with 500 or fewer employees (counting each individual – full time or part time and not FTEs). The final bill does not include a provision in earlier drafts that would have disqualified nonprofits that are eligible for payments under Title XIX of the Social Security Act (Medicaid).
•     Loan Use: Loan funds could be used to make payroll and associated costs, including health insurance premiums, facilities costs, and debt service.
•     Loan Forgiveness: Employers that maintain employment between March 1 and June 30 would be eligible to have their loans forgiven, essentially turning the loan into a grant. Section 1106.

There are exclusions. Organizations must maintain their payroll and full time equivalent of employees for eight weeks after the origination of the loan, and through June 30. The forgivable portion will be reduced by the amount the organization reduces payroll or if you have fewer FTEs. The portion of prorated salaries over 100,000 will also be deducted. 

Source: Nonprofit Quarterly

Help us help you!

Please let Texas Impact know if you apply for a PPP; if you find the process simple or challenging; and if there are other types of support that would be helpful to your congregation, including your outreach ministries.

Twenty Questions for Congregations Considering In-Person Worship 

1. Have pastor and congregation council prayed about this together? Are we in agreement that it is time to start in-person worship? Have we voted on this? 
2. Has there been a decline in cases and fatalities over the last 14 days? Are the hospitals overwhelmed? Is there sufficient testing and contact tracing? State and Local Emergency Management websites
3. What percentage of our congregation are part of a vulnerable population that should not be meeting in groups yet? (65+, pre-existing conditions, compromised immune systems…)
4. Is our pastor a vulnerable individual? Other staff?
5. Will people 65 and over be allowed to come to worship? How will we make it clear that vulnerable populations should not come? Communications? Signs on doors? Will we turn them away?
6. Will we require masks? Will we provide masks? What will we do if people refuse to wear masks?
7. People not living in the same household should stay at least 6 feet apart. How will we facilitate this? Tape on the floor?
8. People should sit every third pew. How will we facilitate this? Tape off pews?
9. If cases and fatalities begin to grow again, will we stop having in-person worship? What will be the benchmarks for this decision?
10. In Phase 1 there is no nursery, and children cannot wander from their household group. Will small children be allowed to come to worship? What age? What will we do if they wander?
11. In Phase 1 churches can only operate at 25% capacity. What is that number for your worship space? Is there overflow seating available? What will we do when we reach that number? Will ushers block people from entering?
12. Will we continue to livestream for those who are unable to be present?
13. It is recommended that hymnals be removed, and worship materials not be distributed. Do we have projection? If not, will we announce everything?
14. Singing increases the distance aerosol and viruses can travel. Singers are super spreaders. Will we sing? Choirs? Masks reduce risk, but do not eliminate the spread.
15. Do we have a written plan for sanitizing all surfaces after each worship service?
16. Communion preparation and distribution require a much higher and more complex set of protocols. Are preparers, distributors and communicants trained and ready for communion yet?
17. How will this plan change if somebody tests positive for COVID-19? Will everyone who is in the room self-quarantine for the next 14 days? Will we cease holding worship in person? How will this plan change if somebody dies from COVID-19?
18. Have we called our insurance company to see if we have liability insurance for claims against us if a lawsuit is filed due to infection or death by COVID-19 as a result of our ministries?
19. Will we have baptisms? Babies are in the low risk group, but they can and have become infected with COVID-19. Is it worth the risk right now?
20. Will we allow outside groups to use our space? What expectations or guidelines will we expect them to follow? (Masks? Social distancing? Sanitizing?)

List provided by the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Action Alerts for April 8, 2020

Utility Assistance Action Alert April 8

Texas Impact joined with partners around the country to send this letter to Congressional leadership. We encourage you to call your member of Congress with a similar message. 

On behalf of our millions of members and supporters nationwide, we, the undersigned [XX] organizations—including energy democracy and justice, environmental justice, conservation, faith, labor, health advocate, consumer advocate, and legal educational organizations—urge you to implement a nationwide moratorium on the shut-offs of electricity, water, broadband, and all other essential utilities as part of the fourth COVID-19 stimulus package. Further, while a nationwide moratorium provides a necessary temporary respite during this COVID-19 crisis, it does not tackle the systemic issues driving these all-too-common utility injustices across America. We therefore urge you to invest significant stimulus funds into long-term solutions, including funding and financing for distributed clean energy systems and funding for percentage-of-income payment plans for municipal water systems and other utility services, which enhance the long-term energy, water, and utility resilience for all communities, in particular low-wealth households, communities of color, and tribes across the country.

While we thank Congress for the CARES Act’s inclusion of important paycheck and eviction protection measures, the CARES Act unfortunately failed to include any moratorium on shut-offs of the basic utility services that families need to survive and protect themselves during this health pandemic. We applaud and thank Speaker Pelosi, Representative Lawrence, and the House of Representatives for including provisions on moratoria on utility shut-offs in H.R. 6379 Taking Responsibility for Workers and Families Act. We also applaud and thank Senators Merkley and Markey and other supporting senators for their letter and Senate resolution calling for a moratorium on utility shut-offs.  Over 600 organizations called for a nationwide moratorium on utility shut-offs at the start of the crisis. With such widespread support across Congress and the public, we urge that both the House and Senate champion the rights of people in the fourth COVID-19 stimulus package by including robust moratorium provisions on utility shut-offs to address this issue head-on. 

The COVID-19 emergency is resulting in the widespread loss of jobs that is unprecedented in modern history—and in particular, is disproportionately harming low-wealth families, especially in communities of color and American Indian and Alaska Native communities. This loss of income threatens the ability of families to pay their rent or mortgage, to buy food, and to shoulder monthly bills for electricity, water, broadband, heat, and other essential utility services. These utility services must be retained to ensure basic family survival and to fight the health pandemic at ground zero. Access to water is foundational to living and fighting the coronavirus, which necessitates constant hand-washing and sanitation. Power is necessary for families to keep their lights, refrigerators, and key medical devices on and to power air conditioning as summer ensues. Broadband access is essential for low-income students who face being left behind as education moves online, for people who have lost jobs to search for new employment, and for families to receive up-to-date information about the coronavirus during shelter-in-place orders. Families should never be put in the impossible position where they must choose between food and sustaining access to their power and water services, or between shelter and getting care for the coronavirus or other illnesses.

First, we request Congress to implement a robust nationwide moratorium on all utility shut-offs, reinstatement of disconnected services, waiver of late-payment fees, and forgiveness of all bills for low-wealth households for the duration of the emergency and an extended grace period. To the extent that some state regulators and power providers have already instituted moratoria on electricity shut-offs, we call for national legislation that ensures that utility shut-off moratoria are implemented across all jurisdictions and that such moratoria have meaningful protections, particularly for struggling families. Over the course of the last several weeks, only half of all state governments, some local governments, and numerous private and public utilities  have implemented moratoria on utility shut-offs that vary greatly in coverage and scope. To resolve the existing patchwork of moratoria, Congress should institute a nationwide moratorium on the shut-offs of all essential utilities that applies across all fifty states so that no family is unfairly left behind.

Moreover, the nationwide moratorium must be robust in duration, coverage and scope to offer meaningful protections for families. First, the nationwide moratorium must last for at least six months beyond the end date of the national state of emergency, in order to allow a sufficient grace period for families to recover from unemployment and other coronavirus-related impacts. Second, the legislation must ensure that all families whose services have already been cut off are reconnected. Third, the moratorium should waive all late payment fee accrual on utility bills through the end of the grace period. Finally, the legislation should forgive all bill payments for low-wealth families through the end of the grace period.

Second, we request Congress address the systemic issues underlying utility shut-offs by investing significant stimulus funds into long-term solutions, including financing and funding distributed clean energy systems and funding percentage-of-income payment plans for municipal water systems and other utility services. Unfortunately, millions of families each year are cut off from their utility services, and the coronavirus emergency exacerbates and highlights the urgency of these chronic issues. According to the most recently available 2017 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 1.2 million households (or approximately 1% of total households) experienced utility shut-offs within the past three months of taking the survey, and 18.4 million households (or approximately 15% of total households) reported receiving notice within the past three months to have utilities shut off for missed payments.  Further, a national survey found that the average water utility disconnected 5% of households for nonpayment in 2016, affecting an estimated 15 million Americans. Finally, approximately 22% of households nationwide do not have home internet, including more than four million households with school-age children. Lacking access to these essential utility services disproportionately harm low-wealth communities, communities of color, and tribes. Moreover, the climate emergency has exacerbated the country’s extreme weather conditions—through unprecedented wild fires, heat waves, and increased frequency and intensity of storms—that necessitate a greater demand in electricity, water, and broadband services for survival and to maintain a basic standard of living, most especially in American Indian and Alaska Native and rural regions.

Therefore, we urge Congress to fund and finance long-term solutions that address the systemic issues driving utility shut-offs across America. First, Congress should implement a permanent ban on all utility shut-offs for all low-wealth families. Second, regarding electricity, Congress should inject significant stimulus funds into the establishment of and access to distributed clean energy systems, especially rooftop and community solar. Distributed clean energy generation is vital to equitable community development, local job generation, and the energy security and resilience of communities in the long-term. As millions across the country face the threat of electricity shut-offs due to coronavirus-precipitated job losses, it is more apparent than ever that decentralized systems can help families generate their own power and decrease dependence on centralized utilities to weather such crises, only sure to rise in the face of growing wealth inequality and increasing climate impacts. Moreover, we urge Congress to tackle our nation’s water affordability crisis head-on by fully funding municipal or rural water infrastructure through EPA’s State Revolving Loan Programs, USDA’s Rural Water Grant Program, and other grant programs, and by providing funds to help municipal, nonprofit or rural systems establish percentage-of-income payment plans for water, sewer and stormwater bills, with arrearage forgiveness for low-income households. With respect to broadband services, we urge Congress to provide substantial funding for emergency broadband connectivity programs, aimed at connecting low-income families and those experiencing job and income loss due to the pandemic, both to meet immediate need and to support those struggling through the impending recession. Similar treatment of other essential utilities is also urged.

Thank you for your consideration of this urgent request.