Tony Evers
Governor Tony Evers recently held a roundtable meeting with a dozen Milwaukee LGBTQ business owners representing a broad range of enterprises. Facilitated by the Wisconsin LGBT Chamber of Commerce, the event took place at LGBTQ owned Hangout MKE on the city’s Eastside.
The governor opened the meeting offering details on his current budget proposals and his vision for Wisconsin’s business environment. The governor underscored his support for diversity in business development. “I’m here to say thank you for your good work. I’ll never ever mess with lives of LGBT people. My goal has to be along the lines of quality-of-life issues, housing, education, all things that make up quality of life. It’s critical to having an economically healthy state. Diversity makes us smarter and stronger,” Evers said. He also noted that many businesses are making the effort and spending money on policies and procedures to take on the diversity issue.
Equity in Health Care
Discussing his current budget proposals, the governor mentioned his plan to include money in the budget for a cabinet level individual to assure equity throughout state government as well as for several health equity issues to address disparities caused by the pandemic. He cited $200 million he earmarked for economic development for businesses with diverse backgrounds and $100 million for startups with a focus on diversity. “I thought we hit a home run with legislature but not a one was accepted. Money for small businesses and startups was cut almost as if they specifically sought them out to remove them,” Evers said.
He also underscored the fact that the budget contained no money to be spent for conversion therapy for minors, a practice that has proved harmful to their mental health and one that the Republican controlled legislature has protected.
Pandemic’s Impact
The roundtable portion of the meeting opened the discussion about the impact of the pandemic on Milwaukee’s LGBTQ businesses. A broad spectrum of services and models were represented by the owners in attendance. They included a franchise confectionary to a tea shop operated by solely by the owner, to a real estate company, a restaurant and a heath care provider. Most rely on direct customer contact and found themselves with mass declines in sales due to pandemic restrictions. Some had recently invested in their respective enterprises and found themselves confronting debt with barely any income. Nearly all the other businesses were forced to reduce or cut staff entirely. One shut down temporarily. Today, in recovery mode, all said staffing was a major problem.
The event host, Hangout MKE, lead off the discussion. The socially focused business was hit hard by pandemic. A café and lounge with amenities intended to create a fun and interactive social environment, it was particularly vulnerable to the restrictions put in place to reduce the spread of COVID-19. However, the owners managed to avoid closing through adaptation to prevailing conditions.
A particularly compelling story was told by Shiree Bass-Henry, owner of Swaye Tea, an herbal tea shop in West Allis. She had just put in a new kitchen when the pandemic hit. Going it alone was her only option. She reverted to take out and managed to survive, operating the entire business for the duration without staff. “I had to divert to online and delivery services,” Bass-Henry said, noting the Catch 22 of using those outside services that make more than the business on sales but are the only option. In her case, delivery was her the only revenue source. “I’m tired”, she admitted but also said she received lots of support from the LGBT Chamber of Commerce, saying, “business owners sticking together really helped us. We understand the value of helping each other out.”
Burdensome Loans
Of particular interest was another pandemic Catch-22. Some loans offered to businesses to weather the storm turn out to be more burdensome than helpful. One business found itself in a predicament of taking out a loan that required paying back interest before being able to pay on the loan’s principal. It is now facing the dilemma of paying back a sizable amount of accrued interest before even touching the principal. Meanwhile, the interest continues to accrue. The business owners presented Evers with a stack of emails exchanged with the lending body. Evers promised to look into the matter.
The main take away from the roundtable was the recognition of our local LGBTQ businesses’ resilience that, with considerable support provided by the LGBT Chamber of Commerce, allowed them to survive the pandemic. It also reiterated Evers’ struggle to create a thriving Wisconsin business environment through embrace of inclusion and diversity despite Republican obstacles.
