The ‘quiet heroism in our midst’

“Help him! Help him! Help who?

Help the bombardier! I’m the bombardier, I’m all right.

Then help HIM, help HIM!”

— From “Catch-22”

Just because you think you’re all right in this coronavirus pandemic, doesn’t mean it’s not out to get you.

That’s why I’ve been thanking virtually everyone who’s still working in the public realm.

The delivery guy? Here, take this $10 bill. Supermarket shelve stockers? Thank you, thank you, thank you. The woman who drives by and throws the newspaper toward the front stoop in the predawn? Sooner or later I will catch up with you.

The garbage collector? See you Monday morning, man.

There’s a daily flood of quiet heroism in our midst. Those whose jobs have been officially called essential might be there out of reluctant necessity, handling the extra work for the rest of us while trying to dodge the clouds of viral spray.

Even more quietly is the death, the people, mostly elderly who might have had years left, but COVID-19 wrapped around them and slowly strangled them, out of sight, away from even their families, tallied only as a statistic the next day, and a death notice in the paper.

It seems like months since the General Assembly suspended its session. It was only Wednesday, March 11, when leaders announced a four-day closure, which soon became April 13, at the earliest.

We’re hoping to get back to some stasis. But it’s all entirely different now, and we’re trying to stay healthy, keep some kind of income to chase after expenses. Yeah, people are worried, in the tsunami of unemployment claims, about Connecticut’s instant recession with the collapse of the restaurant, leisure and hotel industries.

We’ll come back, eventually.

I was on the phone the other day with Joe McGee, vice president of the Business Council of Fairfield County. You know what we were talking about: keeping people safe, hopefully working from home and physically apart so the virus dies on a shop floor or business carpet or sidewalk, rather than getting inhaled and gripping another victim.

After talking about bending the curve, maybe looking ahead to three, five months from now when life regains some normalcy, McGee spoke about the plight of Connecticut’s nonprofits.

“Business councils and chambers of commerce are going to be challenged,” McGee said, stressing that much of their operating expenses and cash flow come from large events, gatherings of hundreds of professionals that can’t be accomplished in the new era of physical distance. “I don’t think people realize the full effect of this.”

The very next day the Business Council of Fairfield County, a dependable advocacy group for Southwestern Connecticut and really, the entire state, announced that it’s ceasing operations at the end of the month.

Gian-Carl Casa, president and CEO of The Alliance: The Voice of Community Nonprofits, told me that presently, social service agencies are still providing residential and other support for people with developmental disabilities, mental health problems, the homeless, people with behavioral and substance abuse issues, as well as those making the transition from prison.

“They continue to try to meet the requirements of their mission,” Casa said. “That’s what they do. That’s who they are.” Many have some differing levels of state funding. “The Department of Developmental Services has been good on funding,” Casa said.

You know your local social service agencies. They are places around the state such as the Kennedy Center in Trumbull and Ability Beyond in Bethel.

They’re in all of our towns and cities, such as the Kids In Crisis youth shelter in Greenwich. There are dozens more nonprofits.

Luis Perez, president and CEO of the 112-yearold Mental Health Connecticut, said more of their employees are working remotely, but the caregivers are in the front lines in Stamford, Bridgeport, West Hartford, Danbury, Torrington and elsewhere with no protective medical equipment. Six field offices have been closed in the pandemic.

“As a leader I’m trying to mandate the mission supporting those more vulnerable than we are, but to ask staff to go out and support individuals is hard,” Perez admitted. “We’re managing to support people in our large vulnerable populations.” The organization helps 1,000 people in residential settings and others in congregate housing.

Seven years ago, when Perez started, 95 percent of the group’s funding was from the state. Now it’s 80 percent. In the accompanying fiscal crisis, who knows what it will be, although the new $2 trillion federal support package includes funding for nonprofits, thanks, Perez said, to their lobbyists in Washington.

Donations from groups and individuals will still be desperately needed to keep these local services alive.

In the next few days Mental Health Connecticut will open an online “MHC at Home” link for anyone with concerns for themselves or others. It could be just in time for people throughout the state under varying degrees of stress in the coronavirus pandemic. Perez recalled another crisis: the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

“That was overwhelming, but it was a finite event,” Perez said. “We knew what the enemy was, if I can use the wartime analogy. Here it is so unknown. For people under stress, you say you solved it today, but can I solve it tomorrow?”