GROUP TO STUDY COVID-19 IMPACT ON S.D. BUSINESSES
The Kim Center for Social Balance, a nonprofit focused on workplace gender equity, recently launched a project to survey business owners about the pandemic's impact on their livelihood.
The survey will gauge how COVID-19 shutdowns have affected small businesses, especially those owned by women, minorities and LGBTQ people. The idea is to offer local governments recommendations that will help guide recovery.
It also will assess what services were available or not available to small businesses.
The center is collecting information from San Diego County businesses interested in participating, and it will likely begin surveying the businesses in early May.
“Our first step is just to find out what
happened,” said Hei-ock Kim, executive director of the Kim Center, based in downtown San Diego. “How many businesses have closed? Why did they close? Did they receive resources?”
She said the hope is that the survey will show if businesses struggled to access resources, if they had even heard about resources, and if they received Paycheck Protection Program loans from the federal government.
Collecting that information could help assess what assistance businesses will need from regional leaders to recover financially from the pandemic, she said.
The survey will be done over the phone. It will be available in multiple languages including Spanish, Vietnamese, Cantonese and Tagalog.
Organizers are seeking businesses willing to share their experiences. Business owners can sign up to participate online at bitly.com/ kimcenterstudy.
Jason Paguio, president of the Asian Business Association San Diego, said the survey results will help organizations that advocate on behalf of business owners to shape policy positions.
“It will be telling of what action should be taken to make sure our communities aren’t left behind,” he said.
The association, which represents Asian Pacific Islander-owned businesses in
the county, worked closely with dozens of businesses owners who were struggling to apply for state and federal grants during the pandemic.
Many API-owned businesses already were seeing drops in sales because of misinformation about the virus, he said, and long before COVID-19 there were already disparities affecting minority-owned businesses. The pandemic only made
those financial and technical assistance issues worse, he said.
The survey results could be released as early at lateSeptember. That would include recommendations to local government officials.
“We can’t do anything about San Diego until we know what is going on in San Diego,” Kim said. “It is a big undertaking.”
The Kim Center received some funding from the
county for the survey and the group is looking for more donors.
Lead researchers include Alan Gin, an associate professor of economics at the University of San Diego, and Kyra Green, executive director of the Center on Policy Initiatives, a nonprofit research and advocacy center in San Diego.