URGENT: Urge Congress to Support the COVID-19 Recovery Fund

While Congress has taken critical steps to protect the public and assist the economy, our current assessment is that additional liquidity will be required for impaired industries and businesses to avoid a historic and systemic economic crisis. The COVID-19 Recovery Fund would facilitate the distribution of federal funds and liquidity to impacted businesses and their employees. The requested relief would be designed to help businesses retain and rehire employees, maintain worker benefits and meet operating expense obligations. Unfortunately, this crisis requires that more must be done to address the unprecedented economic challenges facing our nation.

Please take a moment to urge Congress to support our efforts to create a COVID-19 Recovery Fund.

Take action now!

Subject:

Local businesses are failing and need the COVID-19 Business Recovery Fund!

Dear Official,

As a member of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) I am writing to thank you for your commitment to protecting public health and supporting the economy during this challenging time.

However, the retail real estate industry and the consumer facing businesses we support are being especially hard hit by the government mandated closures of businesses necessary to deal with the coronavirus crisis. Our industry supports nearly 1 out of 4 American jobs – all of which are at risk from the current pandemic. Without broad-based and expeditious federal action, long-term damage to the financial markets, rampant unemployment and irreparable harm to communities are almost certain.

I urge you to consider the creation of a COVID-19 Recovery Fund. Although the loan programs instituted in the CARES Act provide a down payment on economic support for Main Street businesses, additional liquidity will be required for especially impacted industries and businesses to help them reopen and avoid an unprecedented long-term economic crisis.

The Recovery Fund proposal would provide short-term and immediate liquidity for employee retention and rehiring, business solvency and a path for recovery. Based on the calls for help from consumer facing industries like ours, we believe the Recovery Fund is a necessary tool to give businesses capital to resume operations as soon as it deemed safe to do so.

With the majority of the estimated $6.7 trillion of consumer activity generated by the retail, food and beverage, entertainment and consumer service industries occurring within America's shopping centers, the future of the U.S. economy is very much intertwined with the fate of our industry.

Thank you again for your leadership.

Regards, Your Name

Thank you for taking action on this issue.