Out Boulder County’s second round of financial assistance for LGBTQ individuals impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic has nearly doubled the budget of the original.
While the first LGBTQ Direct Aid program deployed in May pooled $25,000, the second round of funding for the LGBTQ Direct Aid totals $40,000, according to Michal Duffy, education and program manager for Out Boulder County.
Out Boulder County today will begin taking applications for second round awards, and will accept them until funds are exhausted. The first round had to close applications within 36 hours, said Out Boulder LGBTQ health liaison Josie Nixon, who conducts interviews for the program alongside José Ramón García-Madrid, the organization's census outreach partner.
The range for award amount requests from $25 to $800 is being increased to a $1,000 maximum. The average amount awarded in the first round of distributions in May was $551.37, Duffy said.
Nixon said a lot of applicants requested less money than they actually needed, which motivated Out Boulder to start a second round of direct aid.
The requests for financial support in the fund’s first distribution was telling of the financial impact of the pandemic’s impact on the LGBTQ community, Duffy said. Applications opened on May 13, so many of those who applied were feeling the pressure to pay their next month’s living expenses.
“The urgency, especially in that first round was so evident,” Duffy said. “It was like, this has to happen now and we tried to make the application process as easy and quick as possible.”
Program applications and interviews are available in English and Spanish.
After applicants are interviewed Ramón García-Madrid or Nixon, materials are reviewed anonymously by the interviewers and representatives from the Out Boulder Trans Steering Committee and Queer and Trans People of Color Steering Committee. Duffy said it was important to Out Boulder to have a diverse group reviewing applications. According to an Out Boulder analysis released in June, 62.2% of the first round recipients were transgender and 44.4% were people of color.
Nixon said that Out Boulder County worked to ensure news of the second round of funding would reach a broad audience.
“This time we released the application to the community to try and reach a wider net of people so that it wasn't a network of folks that only follow Out Boulder on Facebook or on our newsletter or something like that,” Nixon said. “... And hopefully by releasing it a week ahead of time, we'll be able to reach more people and affect change in sort of a wider area.”
The second round of funding does have tighter geographic boundaries because of an agreement with an unnamed donor, Nixon said. The May direct aid was awarded recipients in Boulder, Weld, Larimer and Broomfield counties but this time aid is focused solely on Boulder County.
The majority of recipients of the first LGBTQ Direct Aid — 75.6% of the total 45 — were Boulder County residents, according to the June analysis.
Donations to the direct aid fund have come from three sponsors, one being Xcel Energy and the other two undisclosed for now.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, Out Boulder had never deployed financial assistance in direct aid, Duffy said. Out Boulder decided on a direct aid structure because the LGBTQ population has higher rates of service industry jobs, a sector hit hard by the pandemic, Duffy said.
The LGBTQ Direct Aid Program analysis found that 31.1% of applicants also applied for unemployment benefits.
Duffy added that several recipients from the first round said that they didn’t have family support because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
“A lot of people, like students, are going home to stay with their parents. A lot of adults are going to stay with their family,” Duffy said. “Not all families are accepting so a lot of LGBTQ folks don't have that luxury of family support that folks outside of the community may or may not have to for a variety of reasons.”
Nixon said unemployment and other impacts from the pandemic aren’t exclusive to the LGBTQ community, but they may encounter more hurdles to financial support.
“Probably the most impactful thing for me was to just have these conversations with these folks and have to hear a similar struggle over and over and over,” Nixon said. “I don't think it is completely unique to the community but it seems like a lot of LGBTQ folk are falling between the cracks of funding, or just hitting a lot of barriers with other avenues for direct aid.”
Duffy said direct aid was the fastest way Out Boulder felt it could help.
While Out Boulder knows that the $25 to $1,000 awards might not be a long term-solution to a recipient’s financial situation, just one month’s rent paid or groceries purchased makes a difference.
The June analysis found the top uses of awards were rent or mortgages, utilities, food and groceries and medical and mental health expenses. Out Boulder does not have a strict guide to how funds should be used.
“People know what they need best, and this was the quickest way that we could kind of funnel that rather than trying to be more instructive of like, ‘you need to do this,’” Duffy said. “You're being impacted financially by COVID. Here's some aid to help get you through. You spend it in the way you see fit, whether that's groceries or bills or your therapy or your rent.”
