Portage County Prepares for Hard Winter
Winter is coming for Portage County. As the world approaches one million deaths due to COVID-19, The Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington has put out a prediction that the United States alone will head into January with 371,509 deaths. Many around the country and around the world are nervous about what winter will bring, with those in Portage County sharing the same fears.
Three areas in Portage County, business, homelessness and the mental health of students and teachers, are facing particularly tough challenges in the coming months.
Servers, Small Businesses Worry About Survival During Winter
Ailene Joven got a job at the Bob Evans in Kent. It’s a job she has been trying to get for four years, ever since her freshman year at Kent State University. Until now, too many students have wanted the same job, making it impossible for her to land the position.
But the COVID-19 pandemic means that the amount of people who want to serve at Bob Evans has gone down.
“People just didn’t come back,” Joven said about past servers. “They either quit or stayed home and did completely-online schooling.”
Joven went in for an interview in August, and Bob Evans hired her on the spot. By the end of the day, she was on the floor working.
“We got rid of half our tables,” Joven said. “So I think in total, we have about twenty tables in the restaurant that are open and can be sat. And we’re on limited servers. So normally, since our Bob’s is really small, usually we run on three [servers] a night, but now we only run on two [servers.]”
For now, enough customers are coming in that Joven can make her rent. But she worries about what her financial situation will look like this winter.
“I think when snow starts sticking on the ground people aren’t going to come out at all,” Joven said. “I feel like people are already weary about coming out. Business has been good, thankfully, because we have limited seating, so all our tables go to one or two people. But I feel like in the winter people are going to get lazy and get takeout.”
Small, locally owned, restaurants in Kent are facing the same concern as Joven is. How will they make ends meet during the winter months? Due to regulations put in place to attempt to stop the spread of COVID-19, many restaurants have been forced to cut back on the amount of customers they can serve at once.
For many, summer sales were saved by the city of Kent’s Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area, or DORA. By drinking outside, customers weren’t taking up space inside the restaurants. But not many people are willing to drink outside during the winter months.
Tom Wilke, the economic development director of Kent, doesn’t know if all the restaurants in Kent will survive the winter.
“I am very worried about the winter and the potential effect it’s going to have,” Wilke said. “Particularly on the small restaurants, throughout the city, not just downtown. Once you’re no longer able to take advantage of an outdoor seating area, your occupancy becomes very low because of the guidelines that are in place as far as barriers and things along those lines.”
In an attempt to save some of the businesses, the city of Kent plans to give CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) money to some restaurants.
“We do have some CARES money that we’ve set aside, specifically for small businesses.” Wilke said. “It’s essentially a reimbursement grant program, where if they can demonstrate that they’re either retaining or bringing back employees that are in low to moderate income households, we can provide them with some money. We’re starting out with $7,000, which may not sound like a lot of money, but for so many small businesses, that’s an incredible amount of money.”
Wilke said the city of Kent hopes to eventually raise that cap to as high as over $10,000. Though the city has not handed out any of this CARES funding yet, late last week they did start looking through the applications they have received.
“It’s going to be very very difficult for some of the smaller operations to survive the winter,” Wilke said. “I’m not going to predict anything with certainty, I certainly won’t name any individual business, but it would surprise me if we didn’t have at least a couple, or three, permanent closures.”
COVID-19 Halts Funding for Homeless Shelter as Homelessness Rates Rise
The Haven of Portage County, a homeless shelter in Ravenna Ohio, was supposed to open a new shelter with 64 beds this fall. Now, thanks to COVID-19, it won’t be opened until spring 2021 at the earliest.
“We had volunteers that were working on the project, and when covid hit they started isolating themselves,”said Anne Marie Noble, the executive director of the Haven. “And then, the contractors have also been adversely affected by covid, because they no longer have the ability to donate materials or laborers.”
Noble estimates that they are now paying 19 percent more for the shelter than they would have been before COVID-19. But what really upsets her is the fact that the shelter won’t be open for the winter months.
“That is my big concern, being able to provide some type of sheltering for them,” Noble said. “So, we’re working on a couple of options.”
According to the 2019 Point-In-Time count, homelessness in America increased by three percent in 2019, marking the third straight year of a national-level increase. Research done by the National Alliance to End Homelessness shows that the homeless population in Ohio has actually gone down in recent years, but many experts predict that the COVID-19 pandemic will make these numbers much worse. And in Portage County, Noble has seen that to be true.
“We’ve had, you know, one or two people occasionally sleeping on the courthouse lawn,” Noble said. “But now it’s a lot more visible. People that were couch surfing with their family or friends, that’s oftentimes not an option now because of covid. People are afraid to let their friends or other family members stay with them.”
And winter inches closer, Noble said they are working on finding options for those who are homeless. For now, Noble and the Haven work to refer anyone that comes their way to other resources that exist in the county.
“I’ve been referring them to Coleman Professional, Miller Community House and HESS, which is housing and emergency support services, because there is some COVID support money available,” Noble said. “We just don’t have that.”
COVID-19 Schooling Causes Mental Health Concerns For Teachers, Students
While COVID-19 cases continue to rise everyday, with the United States passing 7 million cases last week, more and more people are growing concerned about the schooling and socialization of kids as the country heads into the winter months.
“For our kids that are online, that aren’t getting that socialization in school, at least now with soccer and some outdoor sports, they are still seeing some of their friends,” said Peggy Shaver, the guidance counselor at Waterloo Middle School. “A concern of mine would be when winter comes along and that’s not a thing anymore.”
Waterloo Middle School currently offers three options for their students. One option is hybrid learning, a second option is learning completely online and the third option is learning completely in-person.
Even those students who chose to learn completely online aren’t completely isolated, Shaver said. So far, the weather has been nice enough that they can go outside to see friends and play sports.
But Northeastern Ohio is not known for its pleasant winters. As the weather gets colder, many experts have expressed concerns over a possible spike in cases. Schools face the real possibility of being forced completely online by Thanksgiving.
The uncertainty over how the school year will play out, and the three different schooling options, has caused stress not only for parents and kids, Shaver said, but for the teachers as well.
“They’re overwhelmed, they’re frustrated, they’re short on time,” Shaver said about the teachers. “Our teachers, I don’t know about other districts in the area, but our teachers are required to teach both their in-person students and their online students. So they’re kind of doing double duty. And it’s…a lot.”