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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 2, 2020)
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 HermistonHerald.com EasternOregonMarketplace.com UPDATES City, CAPECO offer housing assistance HERMISTON HERALD Hermiston residents who have lost income because of COVID-19 can receive assistance with their rent, mort- gage or utilities. The city of Herm- iston and the Commu- nity Action Program of East Central Oregon (CAPECO) are offer- ing fi nancial assis- tance in the form of relief funds for mort- gage payments, rental payments and water, sewer or garbage fees. The applications are open to all house- holds that fall under 110% of the county’s median income. Immi- gration status is not a requirement. Applications are available in English and Spanish. For more infor- mation or to apply, visit www.cape- co-works.org or call 541-289-7755. The assistance pro- gram is made possi- ble by the more than $500,000 that the city received from the CARES Act. The city has also put that money toward other COVID-19 relief efforts, including the most recent round of small business grants from Umatilla County and contribu- tions toward Umatilla Electric Cooperative and Hermiston Energy Service’s assistance programs. Umatilla Elec- tric Cooperative cus- tomers can apply for help with their electri- cal bills through their UCARE program and Hermiston Energy Service customers can apply for assis- tance through their HEAT program by visiting umatillaelec- tric.com/my-account/ energy-bill-assistance. Staff photo by Ben Lonergan Children play at Little Tots Daycare & Preschool in Hermiston on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020. The day care facility, along with many others throughout the state, is working to adapt to shifting guidelines from the state. Day care dilemma COVID-19 shifts Hermiston’s child care landscape By CASEY WHITE-ZOLLMAN FOR THE HERMISTON HERALD In March, Camille Munoz had just recently moved her Little Tots Daycare & Preschool in Hermiston from in her home to a new center location on Kik Road. She and her 10 employees and 47 day care and preschool children had more room to grow and learn. Then COVID-19 hit, and the restrictions to child care provid- ers came fl ooding in from the state’s Offi ce of Child Care. No longer could Munoz take in chil- dren who only needed part-time care, nor could she allow any chil- dren to attend whose parents were now forced to work from home or had been laid off. Only the chil- dren of essential workers could come to Little Tots under the new restrictions. And just when Munoz and other providers felt like they had the new restrictions down, a new set of changes would be announced. “The guidelines changed, liter- ally, week to week, and I couldn’t keep up,” Munoz said. “We’re los- ing motivation. We used to love our jobs, but now we just feel like robots trying to keep up. It’s stress- Staff photo by Ben Lonergan A child reaches for another car while playing at Little Tots Daycare & Preschool in Hermiston on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020. “IT’S STRESSFUL ON ME, MY EMPLOYEES, OUR FAMILIES, MY OWN FAMILY.” — Camille Munoz , owner of Little Tots Daycare & Preschool ful on me, my employees, our fam- ilies, my own family.” Munoz went from having 47 children at Little Tots to 28. To continue affording to pay her eight remaining staff members, she cut her own salary. “As providers, we’re also par- ents and there’s no in-person school,” Munoz said. “I can’t bring my kids with me to (Little Tots) because of the size limits. Unem- ployment hasn’t come through and we’re now living on a one-person income. It’s very diffi cult.” The restrictions are also hard on families and the children that child care providers serve. Kids need structure and consistency, Munoz said, and the restrictions on child care providers have forced many families to pull kids out of day care and preschool, which can be tough on young children. “We have a large group of kids who’ve had the same group of friends consistently for the past year or so. Then that was ripped away,” she said. Carmen Wolfe, who has run Small Wonders Daycare out of her home in Hermiston for 21 years, said it’s been hard to see so much change and how it impacts children. While Wolfe has been fortunate to keep the majority of the 10 chil- dren she cares for because their See Day Care, Page A10 Households still missing from Umatilla County’s census count By JADE MCDOWELL NEWS EDITOR Staff photo by Ben Lonergan A sign along Highway 395 welcomes drivers to the city of Hermiston on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020. INSIDE A3 Five candidates will compete for four seats on the Hermiston City Council Oregon residents are responding to the 2020 Census at above-average rates, but there are still households in Umatilla County that need to be counted. Census takers, offi cially known as enu- merators, are in the process of visiting households that have not taken the initia- tive to self-respond to the census through mail, phone or online. Joanna Hayden, a census fi eld supervisor in Umatilla County, said if people don’t want an enumerator showing up at their door, the best thing to do is to self-respond before that happens. The next best thing is to give infor- mation the fi rst time enumerators come around, so that they don’t keep returning. The census works best when it gives an accurate picture of a community’s demo- graphics, Hayden said, but they will accept a simple count of the number of people in a A6 Umatilla Morrow County Head Start receives major donation from Nike A7 Local bars and restaurants remodel during shutdowns household over getting nothing at all. “If you say, ‘I don’t want to give you information, but I can tell you three people live here, but I won’t give you their age or sex,’ that’s at least something we can put in,” she said. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s website, as of Aug. 31, 54.2% of Umatilla County residents had self-responded, and 44.7% of Morrow County residents. Herm- iston’s self-response rate was 62.6% and Umatilla’s was 55.4%. While the website doesn’t break its enumerated counts down by county, state- wide, as of Aug. 31, 67.9% of Oregon residents have self-responded and enu- merators have collected information for another 23.6%, for a total response of 91.4% so far. Nationwide, a total of 83.2% homes have been counted. See Census, Page A10 A8 A look back at how Herm- iston handled the fl u pandemic of 1918
