The half-trillion-dollar loan program advertised as a lifesaver for the country’s struggling small businesses is again under fire after the Small Business Administration (SBA) on Monday released a list containing hundreds of recipients of the program, revealing that several private equity-backed chains owned by members of Congress and dozens of publicly traded companies and corporations received millions.

The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)—a part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act—first drew scrutiny after it quickly burned through its initial $350 billion allocations by helping large public companies secure multi-million dollar loans while several small businesses missed out. There’s also the fact that the big banks administering the program on behalf of the government are expected to net hundreds of millions of dollars in fees. 

If at least 75 percent of the loan is used for payroll, it becomes “forgivable,” according to the SBA.

Here are a few of the companies which received large or otherwise notable loans in the North Bay:

— Ygrene Energy Fund, a Petaluma company that offers energy efficiency financing and has received millions of dollars in venture capital investments, according to news reports, received a loan of between $5 and $10 million to cover 229 employees.

— The Francis Ford Coppola Winery, named for its movie-director owner and based in Geyserville, received a loan of between $5 and $10 million to cover 469 employees.

— The parent company of Napa County’s French Laundry restaurant received a $2 to $5 million loan for 163 employees. Thomas Keller, the company’s owner and celebrity chef, is suing his insurance company for failing to pay for losses due to the pandemic.

— Piatti Restaurant Company, which owns and operates Mill Valley’s high-end Italian restaurant, received a $2 to $5 million loan for 459 employees.

— 23 Bottles of Beer, LLC, the parent company of the North Bay’s Russian River Brewing Company, received a $2 to $5 million loan for 196 employees.

— The Girl and the Fig, a popular restaurant in the city of Sonoma, received between $1 and $2 million for 138 employees.

— Then there are the politicians. According to Bloomberg News, Paul Pelosi, the husband of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, the longtime San Francisco congresswoman, holds an 8.1 percent stake in the San Rafael-based EDI Associates. EDI in turn has an investment in the El Dorado Hotel, located in the city of Sonoma.  EDI Associates received a loan of between $350,000 and $1 million for 52 employees. A spokesperson for Nancy Pelosi told Bloomberg that Paul Pelosi was “not involved in or even aware of this PPP loan.”

— Congressman Devin Nunes, a Republican who represents the Central Valley, has reportedly outdone Pelosi on the loan front. Nunes owns a stake in Alpha Omega Winery, according to financial disclosure forms. The St. Helena winery received a $1 to $2 million loan for an unreported number of employees.

Maria, a mother who has lived in Sonoma Valley for over a decade, lost hours at work due to Covid-19 and worries about the pandemic’s long-term effects on the children in her community. 

As Covid-19’s economic impacts drive many vulnerable residents back to work even as Sonoma County’s caseload begins to skyrocket, those children may be left at home while their parents attempt to pay off debts accrued during the shutdown. Maria asked to use a pseudonym to protect her identity.

“We’re not going back to work for pleasure; we’re going back out of sheer necessity,” Maria, who speaks Spanish, told the Bohemian through a translator. “We are risking exposure to pay for our needs.”

Although she has not yet heard of anyone being evicted in Sonoma Valley, Maria says she has heard of many landlords asking for several months of rent at one time for families who have fallen behind on payments. While they still have housing, these families wonder how they will ever repay the debt. So far, three and a half months into the shelter-in-place orders, this question has not been answered at any level of government.

In the North Bay, similar to the rest of the state, tenants and landlords are governed by a patchwork of temporary eviction-protection ordinances passed in late March. The rules have paused legal eviction proceedings for the duration of the pandemic plus a few months, depending on which county one lives in.

Although tenants who miss payments because of Covid-19 or related economic impacts are currently shielded from evictions, many are racking up thousands of dollars in rent debt due to missed payments.

Once the crisis is over, depending on a tenant’s county’s local protection, their landlord may begin eviction proceedings if the tenant can’t repay the debt quickly enough.

Although no one knows how long the pandemic—or the related economic impacts—will last, some protections and government payments are scheduled to stop in the coming months. Perhaps most important, the boosted unemployment payments offered under the CARES Act—an additional $600 per week on top of state unemployment benefits for those who qualify—are set to expire at the end of July. 

The situation is even worse for undocumented workers and others who don’t qualify for unemployment benefits. North Bay governments and nonprofits distributed hundreds of thousands of dollars in direct aid for rent and other costs, but the funds were used up very quickly. 

In May, Gov. Gavin Newsom established a $125 million fund for California’s two million-plus undocumented residents. In the end, only about 250,000 undocumented residents, a fraction of the two-million-plus estimated to live in the state, will receive $500 one-time payments.

Under the current rules, all of these overlapping factors could lead to a wave of evictions once the pandemic is declared over and the protections disappear.

In the early days of Covid-19 shelter-in-place orders, when the Multicultural Center of Marin (MCM), a San Rafael-based nonprofit, surveyed over 150 Canal residents, three quarters said paying rent was their biggest concern.

Three months later, that problem still hangs over tenants. While Douglas Mundo, MCM’s executive director, is quick to thank Marin County and state officials for extending the eviction protections, he fears that, at some point, the tenants will be at risk of eviction due to the rent debt.

“Even with all of those resources (from the county and nonprofits), it’s not enough,” Mundo says. “This is going to be longer than we expected… We don’t know how long this will last.”

A longer version of this article is available online.