The municipality of Skagway put nearly a million dollars in the mail on Friday, June 26. Skagway is divvying up its federal pandemic relief funds between every man, woman and child in the community.
Downtown Skagway (Mike Colvin)
The port town stakes its economy on the seasonal cruise ship industry. COVID-19 virtually cancelled it. That left many of Skagway’s roughly 900 year-round residents with little income for the season.
Officials feared that many residents would leave the old Gold Rush town for good. So when the municipality got roughly $7.4 million dollars in CARES Act funding, they proposed something radical: distributing the cash directly to the people in monthly checks.
The Emergency Assistance and Economic Stimulus program is an attempt to keep the town’s year-round residents from moving away. And it’s doing this by cutting $1,000 checks to every person that needs it.
“People seem, at least from my perspective, somewhat relieved that this has happened and maybe they’re not as panicked as they were before,” said borough manager Brad Ryan. He said he’ll judge the success of the program by how the community feels.
“The sense of how people are feeling in town, are they happy, you know, are people engaged in town and out and about… hopefully not too close to each other.”
Skagway expected a record-breaking cruise ship season before the pandemic. The community’s losses are an estimated $160 million. A recently released local economic report shows Skagway to be the hardest hit borough in the region.
This is only the first round of monthly checks. The municipality plans to continue the program through December or until the money—about $5 million—runs out.
