Starting this week, San Francisco workers forced to quarantine with COVID-19 will be assured income support for two to four weeks.
The initial tranche of $2 million in funding will be “on the streets this week,” said District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen during a town hall meeting with the Latino Task Force and UCSF researchers.
The fund will cover COVID-positive residents or workers without access to sick leave, unemployment benefits or other publicly funded cash assistance.
“The key to the Right to Recover program is it’s easy to get this replacement income, that we take away the barriers,” said Ronen.
The Department of Public Health calls everyone who tests positive for COVID-19 and people will now be asked if they have income during the two to four weeks they need to recover. “It is completely based on self-reporting,” Ronen said.
If a person says no, they will be connected to a social worker who will ensure that they get to the next step of securing funds through one of the community-based organizations.
Workers will receive a minimum of $1,285.60 for two weeks and a maximum of $2,2571.20 for four weeks. The grants are based on San Francisco’s minimum wage of $16.04 and a 40-hour workweek.
Until now, workers unable to count on sick pay or unemployment funds, had no recourse to provide for themselves and their families – a critical barrier as the city tries to encourage essential workers to take advantage of free testing.
The Right to Recover program, funded by the city’s Give2SF fund, came directly out of the needs that the Latino Task Force and UCSF witnessed in their April COVID-testing study in the Mission District.
That study found that the Latinx population represented 95 percent of those who tested positive for COVID-19 in the study area. Moreover, 93 percent of those who tested positive could not work from home and 53 percent were asymptomatic.
The findings underscored the need to encourage widespread testing among essential workers. But to do that, the researchers and the Latino Task Force viewed a Right to Recover program as essential.
Diane Jones, a retired HIV nurse who worked on the Mission testing campaign and the recent Bayview campaign, said that on the last day of testing in the Bayview four workers – wearing t-shirts from the same restaurant – came up with several questions including: “If I test positive, do I have access to funds to help support me financially self-isolate?”
At the time, the Right to Recover was still in progress so she had to say “no.” They decided against testing.
The first allocation of the Right to Recover program will be administered by the Mission Economic Development Agency in the Mission District and Young Community Developers.
It will be expanded to other community-based organizations in Chinatown, the Tenderloin and Soma in the future.
The Latino Task Force is now working with the city to have a mobile testing site in the Mission District.
This story has been corrected. We reported earlier that if someone recovered from COVID-19, but lost income during the period of their recovery – and had no recourse to other funds —they would be eligible for the Right to Recover funds. That his incorrect. This is only for current COVID-positive individuals without recourse.
Will someone really contact us?
I’m African America, who meets the qualifications, but can’t get it because I’m not Latin(x)? Sounds racist to me…SMH…they should be ashamed.
I moved to San Francisco in 2018 to take care of my son who is paralyzed from a medical error at a hospital. I have been suffering from PTSD and severe anxiety since I moved here. The only family I had out here passed away in 2018. This city literally makes me sick because my father also died out here from a medical error at the VA. His death was covered by the VA and my son’s medical error was covered up too. My son and my family was never compensated by either hospital because of they covered and the statue of limitations expired. Now the Coronavirus may possibly kill me and I guarantee you San Francisco won’t compensate my family for that either. But they got money to give away to sick people. What about my son who can never walk again because of a medical error. Who is gonna help him.
Have the “moderates” begun to whine yet about how this will just encourage people to flock to San Francisco to become infected just to get the money?
Hey Cabron, I think this is a good policy – we should support working people that live here that are in need.
I’m also a moderate and from what’s been reported by City of SF homeless have come to the City for free benefits. This City and their citizens have big and generous hearts. The City like any family has a budget, perhaps you’re used to people giving you money (like your mama and papi), people get up and go to work to pay rent and put food on the table. Cabron there’s a big difference from this policy helping working families and homeless coming to SF for their hotel room. Trustafarians like you cabron think everything is free, you don’t have to work, you got a right to drink and get your high on with no responsibility. Grow TF up.
Sam