Growing nightmare for the newly unemployed

Ashley Evans, 31, has been unemployed for exactly one month as of yesterday.

She’s far from being alone, as thousands of Bahamians lost their jobs due to the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe.

During an interview with The Nassau Guardian yesterday, Evans said she doesn’t know how she’s going to make it when she has no income and still hasn’t received any unemployment benefits from the National Insurance Board (NIB).

“It’s been very frustrating,” she said.

“I applied from March 24th. The company I work for is a small company that caters to tourists only. I have been laid off from March 20th, no way of any income at all.”

Evans lives with her fiance, who is also newly unemployed, and his 12-year-old daughter.

Before this, the couple was on a promising path and had “never missed a bill yet”, Evans said.

But the COVID-19 pandemic changed all of that.

“My Lord, I just don’t know how it got to this,” Evans said.

“And you can’t get no help from anywhere. Every time you turn around, they send you back and forward.”

During a national address last week, Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis said Cabinet was reviewing a proposed rental assistance program.

He also announced that the government will appoint a Food Security Task Force to “ensure that every Bahamian and resident who needs food is provided with adequate food”.

In the meantime, Evans claimed that she has yet to hear “anything at all” from NIB about her application and that she “went to Social Services and was turned away”.

“I also tried getting rental assistance [but] they told me they stopped it,” she said.

“So, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve just about given up on everything right now.”

Evans, who hails from a Family Island, said she feels her life would have been better if she was back home during this pandemic.

“I’m from the island [but] I had to move here for work, so I don’t have much family here,” she said.

“Nassau is hard. If I was back home without jobs, I would have been able to make it a lot better.”

Evans added, “Right now, I don’t even know what I’m going to do as far as living accommodations because I’m counting on NIB to at least put something in my landlord’s hands.

“Food-wise, I just eat what I have, which ain’t much.

“But I’ll manage. I’m alive; I guess that’s good enough.”

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source https://thenassauguardian.com/2020/04/21/growing-nightmare-for-the-newly-unemployed/