At the Salvation Army, a block away from the Atlantic City boardwalk, Lewis Saunders recently waited in line for a box of food.
Saunders works at AC Linen, a commercial business that does laundry for the hotels in the city. In good times, he can work as much as 60 hours a week.
But these are not good times.
The pandemic has cratered the hospitality industry, the business that fuels the city’s economy. Saunders makes minimum wage and is now lucky if he gets 20 hours a week. The math doesn’t add up: He pays $135 a week in rent. So, to feed himself and his roommate’s children, the 49-year-old regularly stops at four food pantries to stock up.
“It’s been a nightmare,” he said. “It’s a struggle right now to pay rent. I still got to eat. I still got to live.”
Saunders is one of many in this casino town barely getting by.
“I never have seen anything like this before in history in my lifetime,” said Captain Frank Picciotto, who runs the Salvation Army’s food pantry and soup kitchen, which has given out nearly 400,000 meals since March. “Just drive around and you can see the struggle, especially in Atlantic City. Atlantic City is really hard on people. Just drive around and you can see the heartache going on.”
In this town of hope and heartbreak, inequities have long existed —nearly 40% of residents live below the poverty line — but the coronavirus pandemic has put a spotlight on the vulnerability of those on the margins.
When casinos closed for nearly four months at the start of the crisis, thousands of people, primarily those who work in the hospitality and service industry, lost their jobs. The casinos reopened in July, but it is not anywhere near business as usual as far fewer people trek to Atlantic City to gamble, shop and dine at restaurants, casino officials say.
The overall effect has been devastating. The unemployment rate is more than double what it was last year. And some fear more dark days ahead when the eviction moratorium is lifted — “The most fearful thing that is about to happen,” one advocate noted.
“The landscape in Atlantic City is pretty dire right now,” said Tom Hannon, president of the Atlantic City Housing Authority. “Certainly there’s challenges for everybody, but this has people reinventing their families because of how drastically (the pandemic) has changed the landscape.”
The Atlantic City casinos look much different than they did before the pandemic. They are also noticeably less crowded. Casino winnings were down 35% in November.AP
Casino winnings down
The scene looked fairly typical on a recent Thursday night in a casino on the strip. People sat at slot machines, pulling the levers or tapping the digital bet buttons, hoping for a hit. The casino noises blared non-stop. Servers brought drinks to people playing craps and blackjack. Every so often, cheers rang out when someone won big.
Upon a closer look, signs of the pandemic were evident, even in the bubble of a casino environment. Some casinos have banned live poker games. Players still gather at the roulette table but their banter is muffled by masks and separated by clear dividers. Most hotel shops are shuttered during the week.
Damian Cote has been visiting the casinos daily since they re-opened in July. He said the new environment has taken some adjusting, but the casinos feel “safer and cleaner than ever before.”
“The only thing that feels the same is losing money,” Cote joked.
But not as many people are coming to town to take their chances. In November, casino winnings, the money taken in from in-person slots and table games, was down 35% from the previous year, according to the state Division of Gaming Enforcement. Online gaming and sports betting are helping keep the casinos afloat, but those activities don’t require gamblers to visit Atlantic City.
So many workers were laid off between June 2019 to June 2020, that Atlantic County saw the biggest job losses across the largest counties in America — 33,336 jobs lost, or 34.2% employment loss, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In September, the county still had a 15.8% unemployment rate, more than double the previous year.
As of October, there there were 4,670 fewer workers employed by the casinos than the same month the previous year, around a 17% decline, according to the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement. The number of people employed by casinos has been down double-digit percentages every month compared to last year since they re-opened in July, the agency reported.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has been an unprecedented challenge for all of us,” said Steve Callender, the Caesars Entertainment regional president.
And it shows no sign of stopping, as The Borgata, the city’s largest casino, laid off or cut the hours of 442 workers in November, according to the Associated Press. The CEO told workers in her letter that due to the “overall impact on the business, we’ve been forced to modify on staffing levels.”
“We’re currently in shoulder season, (off-peak season) which is tough in a normal year,” said Assemblyman John Armato (D-Atlatnic), who represents Atlantic City and stressed the city’s reliance on tourism economy. “This year we’re just hoping that businesses make it through and with that we need to ensure the hard working employees who have been laid off also make it through.”
Many people in town say the dependence on the casino industry is partially why the city and its residents have struggled economically and that struggle is more visible now.
The industry hit a low point when nearly half the casinos closed between 2014 and 2016. However, hotels and casinos were on an upswing heading into 2020, as revenues topped all-time highs and newly opened casinos were showing success.
Then the pandemic hit.
Conventions were cancelled. Restaurants shut down. Hotel bookings almost vanished. It all added up to a crisis in the hospitality industry, which represents more than a quarter of jobs in the Atlantic City area.
Dewitt Dabney, a lifelong Atlantic City resident who works security at Caesars Hotel and Casino, said Caesars still sees visitors daily — enough to “keep the doors open.”
But he added, “People are afraid of what’s to come.”
Food insecurity is one of the biggest challenges residents of Atlantic City are facing during the pandemic, advocates say. Two women leave the the city's Salvation Army, which says it has given out a total of nearly 400,000 meals since March.Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
‘You can see the stresses in their faces’
For many in Atlantic City, the hardship will likely continue for awhile.
“Until demand reaches the levels needed in order to bring most people back to work, dislocated casino and hospitality workers will have few other options, will have difficulty supporting themselves and their families and will need some form of government assistance,” said Jane Bokunewicz, coordinator of the Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming, Hospitality and Tourism at Stockton University.
The pandemic has again re-inforced the need for other job opportunities outside of the hospitality industry, experts said.
The Casino Redevelopment Agency (CRDA), the main driver of investment into the city, continues to be involved in a variety of initiatives, like a Women/Minority Business Entrepreneurship Center Project that is set to launch soon and the development of Stockton University’s Atlantic City campus.
There has also been a push from community members for civic-minded developments like the Orange Loop, a small business development project in multiple city blocks near the beach, as well restoration efforts in neighborhoods off the casino strip.
“The pandemic provided an opportunity for the first time to look at Atlantic City in a different light, and I think that’s positive in the long run,” said Evan Sanchez, a city native and local entrepreneur involved in a number of development projects. “We’re a city with casinos, not just a casino city.”
But the immediate hope for residents and businesses is in getting the public health crisis under control and visitors back to the resort town.
Hannon, of the Atlantic City Housing Authority, said he fears that “the economic impact of COVID-19 will last much longer than the disease will.”
Around 45% of renters in Atlantic City Housing Authority suffered job or income loss, Hannon said.
And demand for services is growing. Kim Arroyo, director of agency relations and programs at Community Food Bank of New Jersey, said she sees an “exuberant and increasing need for food.” The Atlantic City native helped organize the initial food drive for out of work hospitality employees in April. She expected 500 people to show up. More than 2,500 did.
On a recent Friday, around 3,500 people came to a similar food drive for unemployed hospitality workers and Atlantic City residents.
“What we are seeing is families that have never accessed a food program before,” Arroyo said. “The tears in their eyes. They are hesitant. They are afraid. They are embarrassed. But you gotta do what you need to do to feed your family.”
“It definitely has brought a highlight to food insecurity,” she said of the pandemic.
Picciotto, of the Salvation Army, said even more than nine months into the health crisis, “there is lines of people coming.”
“You can see the stresses in their faces,” he said.
Robin Mays, of Atlantic City, sorts through the food she received at the city's Salvation Army recently.Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
To accommodate the need, the ledge outside the Salvation Army has turned into a communal table. People rummage through the Salvation Army boxes that say “Emergency Disaster Services” to see what’s available. Each box has around 21 meals in them, containing items like canned salmon, beans, cereal, canned vegetables, tomato sauce and Nutri-Grain bars.
“That’s a blessing!” Robin Mays, 56, said when she walked out with two boxes of food.
Mays, who rents a room in a boarding home and is unable to work due to longterm health issues, said it has “been a tough couple months.”
“It’s the money. It has run out,” she said. “There are so many people on the streets that don’t have food to eat. This place is a blessing.”
Benjamin Holland III, a lanky man who walks with a hitch and the assistance of a cane, said he has noticed new faces waiting in line with him for food and he has been struck at how more people keep coming onto the line.
“I’ve seen faces that had stores, faces of people that had things,” Holland said.
Housing experts and advocates warn there could be an influx of homelessness in Atlantic City once the eviction moratorium is lifted.Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
‘Tsunami of evictions’
Along with the food insecurity, is housing insecurity. The homeless population has always been noticeable in the city: on the boardwalk, in the casinos or on Atlantic Avenue.
So far, the homeless numbers have not gone up drastically during the pandemic, advocates said. But that could all change when what’s known as the eviction moratorium, which currently runs through mid-March, is eventually lifted.
“There is definitely a concern on the ground here,” said Wilson Washington, who became the city’s health director in August. “We are concerned about the influx of homeless people.”
Housing advocates agreed, but since evictions are being filed and there is a backlog in court, it will eventually lead to a “tsunami of evictions,” said Staci Berger, president of the Housing and Community Development Network.
In Atlantic County, where 36% of residents are renters, more than 1,700 evictions have been filed between March 1 and November 30, according to Superior Court data. While that’s just less than half of the filings over the same period in 2019, there’s likely hundreds more who haven’t been able to pay their rent over the last few months, one expert said.
“Without more time to repay mortgages and leases, tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people will lose their homes when the moratorium expires,” said Berger. “If we don’t protect folks in every neighborhood, but especially people who have borne the brunt of COVID so deeply, we’re doing this wrong.”
She noted how the housing crisis will follow along the lines of those disproportionately affected by the coronavirus, particularly communities of color, which are the majority of residents in shou City.
The anticipation of an increase in homeless people and families will put a spotlight on the city’s need for long-term solutions, Bowes said. There is currently a multi-year wait for low income housing in Atlantic City.
“It kind of exposed a systematic issue that is going on down here. We need some long-term solutions for the homeless crisis,” Bowes said.
Sanchez said there is a mix of “surviving and thriving” going on with the city pulling together to make sure residents’ basic needs are met during the pandemic but also a “desire to build for a more sustainable, long-term future.”
“If anything, the pandemic has reinforced what we knew before: There are no silver bullets,” Sanchez said. “No quick fixes. But there is a path forward, and we’ve got to keep chugging.”
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Joe Atmonavage may be reached at jatmonavage@njadvancemedia.com.
Sophie Nieto-Munoz may be reached at snietomunoz@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her at @snietomunoz.
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