MINNEAPOLIS — We know across the country blacks are dying at higher rates because of COVID-19. But that is not the only hit. Some minority communities are feeling the impact financially.
The struggle for Phillip Jones: pay bills or purchase food for his family.
He is looking for a job.
“It has just been a struggle,” he said. “It has been a little bit harder. I was already unemployed before it started.”
Jones, who said he worked as a maintenance technician, said he has had phone interviews but no offers yet. He believes he is often overlooked because of his record which includes one offense.
“I was feeling discouraged. I was putting in application after application and I was getting rejected due to my background,” he said. “My biggest fear was being rejected and not getting back to where I was.”
But when he was down, Jones found hope in a non-profit organization called Twin Cities R!SE.
The non-profit helps low-income individuals find long-term and stable employment.
“Rise gave me the encouragement to keep going,” he said adding the non-profit has provided food vouchers and gas cards.
Nicole Pillow is a career coach with the organization. She helps people facing barriers to employment find work and empowerment during their search.
“What is most important is that they know they are not alone in it. We give them strategies and we empower them to work and overcome the barriers,” Pillow said.
But R!SE is pivoting because of COVID-19. Melanie Williams is the director of the R!SE workforce.
She says instead of face to face coaching, it will offer career training, coaching and personal empowerment programs online to participants that qualify.
RISE launched a campaign to raise $25,000 to provide Chromebooks to those without access to training and to use for remote interviews.
That online training rolls out on May 1.
If you would like to help, you can donate at www.twincitiesrise.org or on the R!SE FB page.
Williams and Pillow hope the work from home model leads to opportunities in the job search.
Both saying it should be a question of can you do the job instead of what you have done in your past.
“If they are in their homes, it should shift to what lens we are viewing from. There are valuable skilled individuals with pasts that can be tapped into and utilized at a time when the workforce needs people that are willing to do the work,” Pillow said.
Williams said she hopes companies think outside the box and consider hiring people to do data entry work from home.
Jones is willing to do the work.
Despite COVID-19, a spokesperson with the non-profit said they have found work for six people since March 16. Target and the City of Minneapolis have been the employers. Jones is hopeful, he too, will find employment.
“My hope is to gain stability. Have longevity on a job and teach my kids the right way of doing things,” he said. “I have faith that it is going to be all right.”
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The state of Minnesota has set up a hotline for general questions about coronavirus at 651-201-3920 or 1-800-657-3903, available 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
There is also a data portal online at mn.gov/covid19.