CORONAVIRUS Coronavirus pandemic puts NYC’s struggling taxi industry on brink of ruin, data show New York Daily News July 29, 2020

This story originally appeared in the New York Daily News on July 20, 2020 ,

https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-taxi-medallion-report-covid-pandemic-20200729-mpk7gcu5ovd3zhuuhev4cfr6lu-story.html

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Coronavirus has left the city’s yellow taxi business gasping for breath.


Ridership was down 92% in June — and just one in five of the city’s 13,500 yellow cabs even hit the streets, according to data the city Taxi and Limousine Commission released Wednesday after months of delays.

When New York became the epicenter of the outbreak in April, the amount of money yellow cab drivers grossed before expenses was down to $54 per day, a decline of 70% from the $176 per day they grossed in February. Their gross rebounded to $105 per day in June, but was still 47% lower than the $195 cabbies took in daily in June 2019.

Uber, Lyft and other app-based car services also hurt — but their drivers’ losses weren’t as steep.

Nearly 50,000 app-based drivers stopped working between February and June, which helped driver pay remain stable.

TLC data shows app-based drivers who kept working through the pandemic earned just 5% less in June than they did the same month last year. In June they were doing roughly 251,696 rides per day, nearly 14 times the 18,325 rides yellow cabs saw.

App-based drivers are still doing more business than the the 217,000 daily rides yellow cabs recorded in February, before the pandemic.

“It’s quite remarkable how Uber and Lyft have bounced back to a degree, while taxis have much less,” said Bruce Schaller, a transportation consultant. “What you see in the numbers is more of the same of what you saw pre-pandemic, with Uber and Lyft doing much better than the yellow taxis both as an industry and for drivers individually.”




A woman wears a face mask near the Port Authority in Midtown Manhattan in March.

A woman wears a face mask near the Port Authority in Midtown Manhattan in March. (Luiz C. Ribeiro/for New York Daily News)

Owners of New York City’s taxi medallions — which give drivers the exclusive right to take street hails in the busiest areas of Manhattan — were in trouble before the pandemic hit.


Medallion owners faced an average debt in January of about $700,000 — a figure that began to balloon in 2014 when the app-based companies Uber and Lyft began to siphon rides away from cabs.

Now the outlook for their business is even worse.

“If this isn’t a wake up call for the city and its leaders, then we will know who was responsible for ending this industry and I still wouldn’t say it was COVID,” said Bhairavi Desai, president of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance and a medallion owner.

More people working from home means fewer people commuting by yellow taxis. And with air travel down 85%, fewer people are visiting New York for business or tourism — meaning cabbies can’t count on fares and tips from out-of-towners.

The pandemic has forced nearly 9,000 yellow taxi drivers off the streets since March, giving them little income to pay off their piling bills.

Medallion owners in January called for the city to help find “mission-driven investors” who could help bring down some debt. Now, with the nation facing a severe recession, that option appears to be off the table.

Yellow Taxis are seen parked on 37th Street and 11th Avenue on April 6.

Yellow Taxis are seen parked on 37th Street and 11th Avenue on April 6. (Luiz C. Ribeiro/for New York Daily News)

App-based drivers who stopped working during the pandemic also face uncertainty.

Varinder Kumar, 47, stopped driving for Lyft in March out of fear for his health.

Kumar said he plans to return to work next month if Congress does not renew the $600 in weekly unemployment benefits he’s received from the federal government since April. The extra money is slated to stop coming on Friday.

Varinder Kumar, a Lyft Driver who left work in March out of fear for his health.

“I was making less with unemployment than I was when I was driving in February,” Kumar said. “But I have a family and I need to keep them safe. I won’t make the same money as I did before the pandemic if I go back to work either.”

“If things don’t work out maybe I’ll move to another state that is not so expensive,” he added.

Schaller expects many more app-based drivers will begin to return to the streets in the coming months, which could lead to a reduction in their average pay.

Unlike yellow cab drivers, if Kumar returns to work he would benefit from the city’s minimum wage and paid sick leave rules. He also won’t face the insurmountable debt that taxi medallion owners are having an even harder time paying off due to dismal ridership.


But Schaller said the crisis could bring an ugly reckoning to the yellow taxi medallion business: It could force many medallion owners who are still hanging on to file for bankruptcy, and effectively reset the entire industry.

“The question is: Does this huge drop end up basically flushing all the bad debt down the toilet?” Schaller said. “The thing about the taxi industry is, it could be healthy if you just started over. Bankruptcy could give you a fresh start.”

Landlords Jump the Gun as Eviction Moratorium Wanes New York Times July 23, 2020

This story, Landlords Jump the Gun as Eviction Moratorium Wanes. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/business/evictions-moratorium-cares-act.html) originally appeared on New York Times on July 23, 2020.



The CARES Act temporarily protects millions of renters from being kicked out of their homes for nonpayment. Filings aren’t supposed to resume until after Friday.

Legal Aid lawyers say a tenant received an eviction notice from this apartment complex in Tucker, Ga., even though she’s protected under the CARES Act.

Legal Aid lawyers say a tenant received an eviction notice from this apartment complex in Tucker, Ga., even though she’s protected under the CARES Act.Credit...Melissa Golden for The New York Times

By Matthew Goldstein July 23, 2020


The four-month pause that has protected millions of Americans from eviction cases is set to expire at the end of this week. But that hasn’t stopped landlords across the country from trying to get a head start forcing renters out.

Landlords in Tucson, Ariz., filed dozens of eviction cases last month despite the federal moratorium, which was put in place because of the coronavirus crisis. Legal aid lawyers had to go to court to stop the eviction of a San Antonio renter who had lost her job during a citywide stay-at-home order. And in Omaha, a court found that a struggling renter’s attempted eviction had violated the emergency law.

As the number of Covid-19 cases has surged across the country, a disturbing trend has emerged: landlords commencing eviction proceedings even though the CARES Act relief law currently protects about 12 million tenants living in qualifying properties.

Yolanda Jackson, a special-education paraprofessional in the DeKalb County schools outside of Atlanta, lost her job in March when the schools shut down. Ms. Jackson, a mother of two, has yet to receive an unemployment check, despite confirmation that she was approved, and hasn’t been able to pay her rent. A charitable organization agreed to cover her missed payments, but so far the manager of her complex, LaVista Crossing Apartments, hasn’t sent the necessary documentation to accept it.


“I have tried everything in my power not to get to this point,” Ms. Jackson said. “I’ve been here seven years, and they will not work with me. I am just stressed out and trying to hold it together.”

She received an eviction notice in late June, and the manager said in a court filing that the property wasn’t covered by the federal moratorium. But on Tuesday, lawyers for Legal Aid in Atlanta decided to take her case after finding that the complex is in fact listed as having a federally backed mortgage — making it covered by the CARES Act moratorium.


Yolanda Jackson, still waiting for unemployment benefits after losing her job during the pandemic, is trying to fend off eviction from LaVista Crossing.Credit...Melissa Golden for The New York Times

Lawyers for LaVista Crossing did not respond to messages seeking comment.




At least two other residents of the apartment complex have been served with eviction notices for nonpayment, said Lindsey Siegel with Atlanta Legal Aid. “Many Legal Aid clients are facing evictions simply because their unemployment benefits haven’t come through,” she said.


State and local governments have also issued eviction moratoriums, but the CARES Act is the furthest reaching, covering as many as 12.3 million renters living in an apartment complex or single-family home financed with a federally backed mortgage. But like other moratoriums, it’s about to expire: After Friday, landlords can begin filing eviction notices for failure to pay rent. It will be at least 30 days after that before any tenants are kicked out.


The moratorium has been a lifeline for millions of unemployed people, allowing renters waiting on slow-to-arrive aid to stay in their homes and make up the payments later.


But the far-ranging and hastily assembled CARES Act — which, among things, had provisions for direct relief payments, a temporary expansion of unemployment insurance and hundreds of billions of dollars in small-business aid — does not penalize landlords who violate the moratorium.



Paula Cino, a vice president for policy and government affairs at the National Multifamily Housing Council, a landlord group, said there had been some legitimate confusion at the outset with the federal moratorium and local and state eviction pauses.


“That said, I wouldn’t minimize the fact that there is the potential for bad actors in this space,” she said. “Even if they weren’t initially taking advantage of the system, they have the responsibility to better understand.”


Once an eviction case enters the legal system, it can have lasting consequences: Even a wrongfully filed action can be difficult to remove from court records and keep turning up when renters go through background checks.


“An eviction judgment stays on a tenant’s credit report for seven years, is grounds for wage garnishment and makes it more difficult for a tenant to find future housing,” said Stacy Butler, a law professor at the University of Arizona who has been tracking violations of the CARES Act.



Even with a moratorium in place, landlords have been serving eviction notices in places across the country, housing advocates say.

Even with a moratorium in place, landlords have been serving eviction notices in places across the country, housing advocates say.Credit...Melissa Golden for The New York Times

The moratorium bars the start of evictions for nonpayment for about 12 million renters in properties that have federally backed mortgages.

The moratorium bars the start of evictions for nonpayment for about 12 million renters in properties that have federally backed mortgages.Credit...Melissa Golden for The New York Times

The scope of the problem is elusive. Wrongly evicted renters might not bother trying to challenge their landlords, sometimes because of their immigration status, or because they do not know they have the right.

But wrongful evictions have been reported across the country. The Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a consumer advocacy group, found more than 100 filings in apparent violation of the CARES Act in Arizona, Texas, Florida and Massachusetts.

And in a survey of 100 legal aid lawyers in 38 states, by the National Housing Law Project, all but nine said they knew of attempts at illegal evictions in their cities. The problem prompted the group to create a draft complaint to challenge a violation of the CARES Act moratorium.




Judges have been troubled, too. The Texas Supreme Court issued a statewide order on Tuesday requiring landlords to certify whether the CARES Act applies to an eviction case, and Arizona’s Supreme Court took a similar action earlier this month.




Lawmakers in Washington are debating another relief law — including possible stimulus payments, aid for governments and schools, and a decision on what to do about the extra $600 weekly unemployment benefit — and housing advocates want it to have more help for renters.




The landlord group is in favor of help for tenants, too. The National Multifamily Housing Council said it favored the creation of an emergency rental assistance program of up to $100 billion. But the organization opposes a “protracted extension of a federal eviction moratorium.”




If the moratorium is extended in another relief bill — it is part of the $3 trillion package passed by House Democrats — there are calls from housing advocates to give it enough teeth to keep landlords from trying to skirt the rules.




“There should also be clearly delineated enforcement mechanisms and steep penalties for landlords who flout the law,” said Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, which has set up a webpage to help tenants determine if their rental is covered by the CARES Act.



With some forms of aid slow to arrive, the eviction moratorium has allowed struggling tenants to stay in their homes.

With some forms of aid slow to arrive, the eviction moratorium has allowed struggling tenants to stay in their homes.Credit...Melissa Golden for The New York Times

Nelson Mock, an attorney with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, said lawyers across Texas had seen “landlords trying to sidestep the issue.”




Juanita Herrera DeLeon, 57, who lost her job in March during San Antonio’s stay-at-home order, had to fend off an eviction attempt despite the CARES Act moratorium.




Soon after Ms. DeLeon lost her job, the manager of her apartment complex, the Olmos Club Apartments, tried to lock her out by installing a device on her doorknob. It was removed after she complained to the police, but she said the complex had tried other tactics to get her to leave, like posting on her front door a three-day notice to vacate the premises.




That was when she sought help from RioGrande Legal Aid. In a statement filed with her lawsuit, she said the property manager “did not leave me anything in writing about locking me out” before the first attempt.




The suit was recently settled; Mr. Mock said he was not permitted to discuss the terms.




Jason Adelstein, a lawyer for the Olmos Club Apartments, said, “The dispute was settled between the parties, my client denies any wrongdoing, and due to the terms of the settlement agreement between the parties there can be no further comment.”




The issue of CARES Act violations may be worst in Arizona.




In June alone, at least 80 eviction proceedings that were started in the local courts in Pima County appeared to violate the CARES Act, according to research by a team that included Ms. Butler, the law professor in Tucson. Many were filed by small landlords, and it’s hard to know whether the filings were intentional or a mistake, she said.




One property owner, however, was responsible for filing more than a dozen cases against residents of the Cordova Village apartment complex on Tucson’s south side.




The landlord, Equilibrium Properties, which operates several apartment buildings in Tucson and Washington, D.C., said in an emailed statement that the eviction filings had been made in error. The company, which received at least $150,000 under the Paycheck Protection Program established by the CARES Act, said it had moved to vacate the proceedings and was “rescinding all notices for nonpayment that have been given to tenants.”




“Moving forward,” the company said, “we will take every effort to comply with the CARES Act.”

Federal Aid Has So Far Averted Personal Bankruptcies, but Trouble Looms Once federal benefits dry up, highly indebted consumers could be forced to file. New York Times July 17, 2020

This story, Federal Aid Has So Far Averted Personal Bankruptcies, but Trouble Looms

Once federal benefits dry up, highly indebted consumers could be forced to file.

originally appeared in the New York Times on July 17, 2020 at

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/business/personal-bankruptcies-coronavirus.html

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Federal Aid Has So Far Averted Personal Bankruptcies, but Trouble Looms
Once federal benefits dry up, highly indebted consumers could be forced to file.



Credit card debt piled up for Jess Brown, and the $600 federal unemployment supplement has kept her afloat. That benefit ends this month.

Credit card debt piled up for Jess Brown, and the $600 federal unemployment supplement has kept her afloat. That benefit ends this month.Credit...Eamon Queeney for The New York Times

Mary Williams Walsh

By Mary Williams Walsh

July 17, 2020


The United States went into the Great Lockdown with the most household debt in history, stagnant incomes for all but high earners and armies of people telling pollsters they were living paycheck to paycheck. Then, for millions, their paychecks stopped.


But instead of a stampede to the bankruptcy courts, personal bankruptcy filings — a useful, if extreme, indicator of the financial health of the American consumer — dropped sharply from April through June, even as unemployment soared, according to calculations by the American Bankruptcy Institute based on data from Epiq Global, a legal research and analytics firm.


Bankruptcy Filings and Household Debt

American households had more debt than ever when the pandemic sent unemployment soaring this spring. But bankruptcy statistics have yet to reflect the struggle to manage that debt; personal bankruptcy filings are in sharp decline.


“Filings have just gone through the floor,” said Henry E. Hildebrand III, a consumer bankruptcy trustee in Nashville. Such trustees supervise the finances of people who have declared bankruptcy and agreed to pay creditors over three to five years. Mr. Hildebrand usually gets 350 to 400 new cases a month, he said, but last month he added just 107. Nationwide, the drop in personal bankruptcy filings is the biggest in 15 years.




One reason for this counterintuitive picture: The federal government’s stimulus package, which, beginning in April, has put cash into unemployed people’s hands on a weekly basis, allowing them not just to buy groceries and pay rent, but to pay down existing debt.




As of mid-June, the Treasury Department had issued nearly $270 billion worth of stimulus payments to some 160 million people. Unemployment benefits, which normally average about $340 a week, were temporarily increased by $600 a week. Some unemployed people now have more income than when they were working.







But those benefits are set to expire this month. Congress will take up the issue of whether to extend them, along with other emergency aid, when the Senate returns next week, but if no more aid is forthcoming after July — given the double-digit unemployment rate and a resurgent virus in many parts of the country — a far more dire portrait of the financial pain of millions of Americans is set to emerge in the coming months. Bankruptcy experts say consumer bankruptcy filings will then start to rise.







The banking industry is already gearing up for a wave of defaults on everything from mortgages to credit card debt. Several of the nation’s biggest banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup, said in their second-quarter earnings reports that they had added tens of billions of dollars to their reserves to cover losses they expect to incur on business and consumer loans.




Jess Brown, 42, quit her marketing job two years ago to start a small house-sitting business, but ended up crushed under more than $40,000 of credit card debt. The card companies offered her rehabilitation plans, but only if she let them automatically withdraw the payments from her checking account. That led to overdrafts and bank penalties.




Not knowing what else to do, last October she dropped out of those plans, moved in with relatives in North Carolina, changed her phone and avoided the debt collectors. She went online to learn about budgeting and compound interest and tried to research consumer bankruptcy, too, but got mostly spam from debt-consolidation companies.




Then came the pandemic. With her patchy recent earnings record, Ms. Brown was eligible for just $135 a week of regular unemployment compensation. But the supplementary $600 has kept her afloat and given her the means to keep looking for work. Ms. Brown tries not to think what will happen if the federal relief stops.




“It only brings me emotional distress,” she said.




For the economy as a whole, which is driven by consumer spending, that extra $600 a week has been “nothing short of a game-changer,” said Matt Schulz, chief industry analyst for LendingTree, the online credit marketplace. The company recently reviewed a large sample of credit card data from 800,000 users and found that unpaid balances, late payments and usage all fell from February to May, as the federal money began to flow.




“Instead of just squeaking by, that extra money has allowed many Americans to actually pay down debt and increase savings in ways that would be unimaginable under normal terms of unemployment,” Mr. Schulz said.




But even if Congress extends the relief measures, they are a temporary salve that will do little to change the long-term patterns of income stagnation and indebtedness that have left American households so vulnerable to a financial shock. Total household debt reached $14.3 trillion in the first quarter of this year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — a record.







ImageHenry E. Hildebrand III, a consumer bankruptcy trustee in Nashville. His caseload has plunged.

Henry E. Hildebrand III, a consumer bankruptcy trustee in Nashville. His caseload has plunged.Credit...Brett Carlsen for The New York Times

Most of the economic gains from the last 30 years of economic growth, except for the Great Recession, have been going to top earners, leaving the bottom half of wage-earning America struggling — and highly indebted. Research from Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez, professors at the University of California, Berkeley, showed that in 2018, those in the bottom half carried debt that was 219 percent of their income. And that’s who was hit first and hardest by the economic shock this spring.




Nearly 40 percent of households earning less than $40,000 a year had already lost at least one job by May, according to the Federal Reserve, which has been analyzing household finances closely. That compares with just 19 percent of households earning $40,000 to $100,000, and 13 percent of households earning more than $100,000 a year.




A survey done in May by the Census Bureau showed further that younger households, and those with less education and lower earnings, were likeliest to be losing income in the shutdowns. They were also likelier to say they could not make their rent or mortgage payments and had sought forbearance.




Jenny Doling, a consumer bankruptcy lawyer in San Diego, said consumers whose debts started to snowball were generally better off seeking protection in bankruptcy right away. That’s because bankruptcy automatically halts creditors’ collection efforts, giving insolvent consumers a safe place to work out their three- to five-year repayment plans, and possibly save important assets like a house or a car.




But for many, the idea of bankruptcy comes with the threat of a stigma.




“Filing bankruptcy, for consumers, is sort of an admission that you’re a financial failure, and people just can’t admit that,” said John Rao, a lawyer at the National Consumer Law Center in Boston. “They still think that they can pull out of it somehow.”




People also get sticker shock when they hear that the cheapest consumer bankruptcy case, a liquidation, is likely to cost about $1,500. In 2005, amid concerns that spendthrift consumers were abusing the bankruptcy system, Congress tightened the laws, increasing the cost of a case and requiring legal fees to be paid upfront. The next year, the number of cases fell to around 600,000 from more than two million in 2005, but began climbing again in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Last year, 752,160 cases were filed; this year, if filings continue at their current rate, there will be 590,854 by the end of December.




While consumers struggle, they often turn to their credit cards to make ends meet, thinking they will pay down the balance when they’re called back to work. In the meantime, they make just the minimum monthly required payment.




Each month’s unpaid interest, accruing at 20 percent or more, is then tacked onto their principal balance, causing their debt to balloon even if they don’t buy anything.




“It becomes completely unmanageable,” Mr. Rao said.




That’s what happened to Ms. Brown. She had good credit when she quit her job in early 2018, and lined up a series of house-sitting gigs in Europe, using her credit cards for airfare and food as she moved from country to country. She was stunned to see how fast the interest compounded. But she also found that when she hit the maximum on one card, other issuers would give her new ones. Sometimes they came with offers of a gift card if she spent a lot more money quickly.




Realizing she had no way out, she returned to the United States.




“I had a wall of credit card debt that was waiting for me,” she said. She kept trying to make a go of her house-sitting business. Then the economy went into shutdown, and people stopped traveling. “In one day I had six cancellations,” she said.




For now, Ms. Brown said, the debt collectors have been leaving her in peace. But any day, she said, she may open the door and find a process server standing there with the papers for a bank’s lawsuit.




“It’s not a question of ‘if’ but ‘when,’ and it weighs on me heavily,” she said.

A reader of our blog asked a very good question regarding guarantees/guaranties and our post regarding the use of bankruptcy to terminate or end commercial leases in Manhattan, New York. 

The question posed was how does one terminate or end a lease in Manhattan if the lease is guaranteed by a principal of the tenant?

Our response is below.

Our blog can be found at http://shenwick.blogspot.com/ and the post titled "Commercial leases in New York City, COVID-19, Recent Protests and a Strategy to End or Terminate Commercial Leases", dated SUNDAY, JULY 12, 2020 can be found at https://shenwick.blogspot.com/2020/07/commercial-leases-in-new-york-city.html.






First, if a commercial lease has a guarantee/guaranty, terminating the lease without addressing the underlined guarantee, is of no value to the commercial tenant.



Second, there are two types of guarantees/guarantys with respect to commercial leases, there is a general guarantee (“Guarantee” ) which generally requires that the principal of the tenant guarantee the payment of base rent, additional rent and the performance of any requirements under the lease by the tenant.



Third, the second type of guarantee/guaranty is known as a Good Guy Guarantee (“GGG”), which requires the principal of the tenant to pay rent or additional rent until the tenant vacates the space, returns the keys to the landlord and leaves the space in a broom clean condition. Many GGG have a term limit, in which the good guy guarantee expires after a certain number of years, such as 2 to 3 years if there is no default under the lease.



Fourth, after being retained to terminate a commercial lease with a guarantee, we request a copy of the guarantee and review its terms to determine if it is a guarantee, a GGG or a guarantee that has terminated for some reason such as time.



Fifth, we then ask for financial statements from the guarantor, including a balance sheet and income statement.



Sixth, we then engage in asset protection planning for the guarantor to make it more difficult for the landlord to obtain possession of the guarantor's assets if there is a default under the lease or no settlement with the landlord.



Seventh, we then begin negotiations with the landlord, providing the landlord with the pro forma bankruptcy petition for the tenant and financial information regarding the guarantor. Often times we will also prepare a pro-forma bankruptcy petition for the guarantor, although a bankruptcy filing by the guarantor is always a last resort.



Eighth, we aim to convince the landlord that by doing a workout and releasing the tenant and the guarantor, the landlord will regain possession of its premises sooner, the landlord will save on landlord tenant and bankruptcy legal fees. The exercise is similar to that which we do when there is no guarantor, but with a guarantor there is another degree of difficulty or complexity, which is not insurmountable. Additionally, based on the time value of money, a dollar paid to the landlord today has greater value than the landlord being paid over three years and a bankruptcy filing by the guarantor.



Ninth, if we are unable to do a work out with the landlord, then the tenant can file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy and the guarantor can file either a chapter 7 bankruptcy ( liquidation) or Chapter 13 bankruptcy where the landlord will be paid back over three to five years or a Subchapter V Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the guarantor (the landlord would be paid over 3 years).

While we cannot guarantee success, we have used these strategies successfully in Manhattan and for the right tenant and guarantor, they are a very effective way to terminate or end a commercial lease. Jim Shenwick 212 541 6224 jshenwick@gmail.com

Cancel Student Loans In Bankruptcy? You May Not Qualify Forbes July 16, 2020

This story Cancel Student Loans In Bankruptcy? You May Not Qualify  Forbes July 16, 2020 originally appeared
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2020/07/16/student-loans-bankruptcy/#227c03822cb4
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Cancel Student Loans In Bankruptcy? You May Not Qualify
Zack Friedman

Can you discharge your student loans in bankruptcy? A new proposal says yes, but not everyone qualifies.

Here’s what you need to know.

Student Loans
Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D -PA) introduced new legislation today that would make it easier for you to discharge student loans in bankruptcy if you are struggling financially and have been impacted by Covid-19. Here’s the good news: the COVID-19 Student 5 Loan Relief Act of 2020 would apply to both private student loans and federal student loans, and be available to all Americans impacted by Covid-19.

Discharge student loans: the fine print
Now, here’s the fine print: you may not qualify to discharge your student loans in bankruptcy under this proposal. According to the bill, to qualify:

your income has been reduced due to the Covid-19 pandemic; or
the primary income earner in your family died; or
you have become permanently disabled
Most Popular In: Personal Finance

Second Stimulus Check Income Limit Will Likely Be Higher Than $40,000
New Stimulus Package May Be Introduced Next Week
Proposal: Discharge Student Loans For Those Harmed By Pandemic And Recession
Now, lets’ break down the first requirement based on the language on the bill. The legislation requires a reduction in income due to Covid-19. What does this mean? Here’s what the bill says. It’s not enough that your income simply declined. Specifically, to qualify to discharge your student loans in bankruptcy

If you make less than this pre-tax income...your income must decline by at least this percentage...

< $75,000 Income: at least 20% decline
$75,000 - $125,000 Income: at least 30% decline
$125,000+ Income: at least 40% decline
Plus, the relevant time period is “beginning January 21, 2020 and extending until 60 days after the duration of the Covid-19 emergency or the duration of the Covid-19 outbreak or as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.” Even if you wouldn’t qualify under this specific proposal, you still may be able to discharge your student loans in bankruptcy through the normal course based on your financial situation. Traditionally, unlike mortgages or credit card debt, student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. There are exceptions, however, namely if certain conditions regarding financial hardship are met.

Cancel student loan debt
This latest bankruptcy legislation is part of an ongoing effort to provide more student loan relief, particularly as as result of Covid-19. For example, Student Debt Crisis, a leading student loan advocacy not-profit, recently sent Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) a petition for student loan forgiveness with 1.2 million signatures. Warren, who proposed student loan forgiveness for 95% of Americans, has been a proponent of student loan forgiveness and student loan debt cancellation. Scanlon’s legislation would make it easier by amending Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, although the requirements to qualify may be challenging for some. Student loan forgiveness has been a hot topic in Congress, particularly in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. For example, former Vice President Joe Biden reiterated his support for student loan forgiveness and his support to discharge student loans in bankruptcy. Other members of Congress have proposed legislation to forgive student loans, although none have become law.

Will student loans be included in the new stimulus?
Maybe. It’s unlikely that this bill or a similar bill to discharge student loans in bankruptcy will be included in the new stimulus. The new stimulus package may be introduced next week. Currently, the focus includes second stimulus checks, state and local aid, unemployment benefits or a return-to-work bonus and liability protection due to Covid-19 for businesses. However, don’t expect student loan forgiveness to be included. However, Congress may extend student loan relief under the Cares Act, or Congress could allow the student loan relief to expire as planned on September 30, 2020. That said, student loans have not been the focus among Republicans (who control the Senate) among other high priority issues. There is bipartisan support to make student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy, but there may not be consensus to act until after the election in the next Congress.

The Eye of the Bankruptcy Storm New York Times July 17, 2020

This post appeared in the New York Times on 7/17/20

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/business/dealbook/bankruptcy-filings-pandemic.html

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The Eye of the Bankruptcy Storm




Chesapeake Energy was among the companies to file for bankruptcy protection in recent weeks.Credit...Brett Carlsen/Reuters
July 17, 2020Updated 7:28 a.m. ET








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The pendulum swings back toward fear

As the pandemic persists, more and more companies have filed for bankruptcy protection, following in the footsteps of Hertz, J. Crew and Neiman Marcus. But financial restructuring advisers — the bankers and lawyers who help troubled companies repair their balance sheets or slog through Chapter 11 — say that they expect filings to accelerate. If anything, we’re now in the lull before the storm.

About 3,600 companies filed for Chapter 11 in the first half of 2020, more than any year since 2012, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute. The past few weeks have brought filings by the fracking pioneer Chesapeake Energy, the Japanese home goods company Muji USA and the retailer New York & Company.




Image


But cases dropped last month. Why? Advisers cited the federal government’s programs for stabilizing the economy and credit markets, as well as efforts by companies to bolster their cash by drawing down their credit lines and issuing new bonds. (Businesses worldwide have sold $2.1 trillion worth of bonds so far this year, up 50 percent from the year before.) Earlier-than-expected reopenings have bolstered some businesses’ performance, allowing them to bring in some sales — critical to servicing their debts.



Yet as coronavirus cases surge again, an uptick in filings may follow. The rise in infections brings the prospect of renewed lockdowns and shakes consumer confidence, testing companies’ abilities to survive another spell of little to no revenue. “We’re starting to see the pendulum swing back toward fear again,” William Hardie, a managing director in Houlihan Lokey’s financial restructuring group, told DealBook’s Michael de la Merced.

And what comes next could be ugly. Many companies that saved themselves by borrowing more money are now in a bind: They have mortgaged nearly all their available assets, leaving little wiggle room.


• Creditors are willing to give companies concessions on existing debt covenants — especially since they don’t want to recognize any of their loans as impaired, hurting their own balance sheets — but if borrowers need more money, they may find lenders are unwilling or unable to front the cash.

Where to expect the next wave: While retailers and energy companies have dominated the first wave, restructuring experts say the next round of filings could hit the travel industry hard, including airlines, hotels and firms that lease planes to carriers.



More companies will be taken over by lenders, who will convert their loans into equity. So far, advisers say, talks between debtors and creditors have been sanguine, with relatively few of the disagreements that often complicate Chapter 11 cases. “There’s no finger-pointing,” Mr. Hardie said. “Everyone realizes this is no one’s fault.”




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The C.D.C. has extended a ban on cruise ships until Sept. 30.Credit...Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters

‘I Can’t Keep Doing This:’ Small-Business Owners Are Giving Up New York Times July 13, 2020

More owners are permanently shutting their doors after new lockdown orders, realizing that there may be no end in sight to the crisis.

Gabriel Gordon shuttered his popular barbecue restaurant in California after the state saw a resurgence of coronavirus cases and imposed new restrictions.Credit...Horatio Baltz for The New York Times



By Emily Flitter
July 13, 2020



On the last Friday of June, after Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas said that bars across the state would have to shut down a second time because coronavirus cases were skyrocketing, Mick Larkin decided he had had enough.

No matter that Mr. Larkin, an owner of a karaoke club in Wichita Falls, Texas, had just paid $1,000 for perishable goods and protective equipment in anticipation of the weekend rush. No matter that the frozen margarita machine was full, that 175 plastic syringes with booze-infused Jell-O were in place, or that there were masks for staff members and hand sanitizer for guests.

That day, June 26, Mr. Larkin and his partner dumped what they had just bought into the trash and decided to close their club, Krank It Karaoke, for good.

“We did everything we were supposed to do,” Mr. Larkin said. “When he shut us down again, and after I put out all that money to meet their rules, I just said, ‘I can’t keep doing this.’”



It was harrowing enough for small businesses — the bars, dental care practices, small law firms, day care centers and other storefronts that dot the streets and corners of every American town and city — to have to shut down after state officials imposed lockdowns in March to contain the pandemic.

But the resurgence of the virus, especially in states such as Texas, Florida and California that had begun to reopen, has introduced a far darker reality for many small businesses: Their temporary closures might become permanent.


Nearly 66,000 businesses have folded since March 1, according to data from Yelp, which provides a platform for local businesses to advertise their services and has been tracking announcements of closings posted on its site. From June 15 to June 29, the most recent period for which data is available, businesses were closing permanently at a higher rate than in the previous three months, Yelp found. During the same period, permanent closures increased by 3 percent overall, accounting for roughly 14 percent of total closures since March.


Researchers at Harvard believe the rates of business closures are likely to be even higher. They estimated that nearly 110,000 small businesses across the country had decided to shut down permanently between early March and early May, based on data collected in weekly surveys by Alignable, a social media network for small-business owners.

Christopher Stanton, an associate professor at Harvard Business School who was one of the researchers, said it was difficult to accurately gauge how many small businesses were closing because, once they shut their doors for good, the owners were hard to reach. He added that it could take up to a year before government officials knew the true toll the pandemic was taking on small businesses.



At the moment, 39 states continue to record growing numbers of new cases daily.

It is not clear how many of the businesses Yelp is tracking count as “small” — defined by the Small Business Administration as those with 500 or fewer employees. But the company found that, among the tracked businesses — which include restaurants, retailers and other independent, consumer-facing operations — retail businesses, led by beauty supply stores, have been closing at the highest rate since the pandemic began. Restaurants are the next hardest-hit group.




ImageNick Muscari decided to permanently close Nick’s Sports Grill and Lounge in Lubbock after Texas’s second round of virus closures.Credit...Dylan Cole for The New York Times


Small businesses account for 44 percent of all U.S. economic activity, according to the S.B.A., and closures on such an immense scale could devastate the country’s economic growth. If they were grouped together, small businesses would be among the country’s biggest employers, said Satyam Khanna, a resident fellow at the Institute for Corporate Governance and Finance at New York University School of Law who has written about the effects of the pandemic on small businesses.

So when small businesses close en masse, an entire sector of the economy suffers, Mr. Khanna said. There is lower cash flow, higher debt and more unemployment. “That leads to a big drag on the eventual recovery,” he said. “Because they are such an important source of jobs, losing them the way we are losing them now is going to make things far worse than they otherwise need to be.”

Because small businesses depend heavily on foot traffic and operate on thin margins, they are especially vulnerable to the ripple effects of a widespread shutdown.

For nearly two decades, Rich Tokheim and his wife sold sports memorabilia — hats, T-shirts, coffee mugs and other trinkets — to fans in Omaha at their store, The Dugout. Since 2011, The Dugout has occupied prime real estate across the street from the city’s 24,000-seat baseball stadium, which usually hosts the College World Series each spring.

The 2020 World Series was canceled in March. In the weeks that came after, other sporting events were scrapped — starting with college sports and extending to professional leagues that have struggled to relaunch their activities.



Mr. Tokheim, 58, watched his business fall off with growing unease, but it was only after a friendly chat with a retired college athletic director in May that the gravity of his situation hit home. He was already worried about the state of the virus in Nebraska, and whether there was enough tracking. Then the athletic director predicted that if college football was canceled for the year, it would be the end of Division I sports as a whole.

“That really put me in overdrive,” Mr. Tokheim said. He negotiated an early exit on his store lease and announced a clearance sale at the store. The Dugout closed for good on June 30.

The government’s Paycheck Protection Program, rolled out in April and administered by the S.B.A., earmarked $660 billion of aid for small businesses, but stipulated that a loan would be forgiven only if most of it was used to pay employee wages for eight weeks. The rules were later relaxed, but in a sign of how many small-business owners did not feel confident that they would be on steady ground by the time repayment was due, roughly $130 billion of aid money remained untapped when the program ended in June.

Even for those who took a P.P.P. loan, survival is no guarantee. Nick Muscari, a 38-year-old restaurateur in Lubbock, Texas, received one. His restaurant, Nick’s Sports Grill and Lounge, had been the culmination of Mr. Muscari’s life’s work — his years of toil as a waiter, pizza cook and manager at restaurants and bars beginning in his teenage years. Three years ago, he bought out the two partners who helped him start the restaurant in 2010. He considered it a crowning achievement, but to do so, he had to borrow money. He still owes a bank $80,000.




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Mr. Muscari still owes a bank $80,000 on his now-shuttered restaurant.Credit...Dylan Cole for The New York Times

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Nick’s Sports Grill and Lounge is now up for rent.Credit...Dylan Cole for The New York Times
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“We never had anybody catch the virus in our establishment,” Mr. Muscari said.Credit...Dylan Cole for The New York Times


Mr. Muscari tried to ride out the spring lockdown that temporarily shuttered his restaurant with the help of the P.P.P. money. But when the state’s second closure order took effect on June 26, he decided to close for good.



“It had been in the back of our minds, just like, you know, if this happens again, can we make it?” Mr. Muscari said. “We were following all the rules and people were spread out. We never had anybody catch the virus in our establishment."

Mr. Muscari, with the business closed and its 30 employees jobless, has nothing left but his house and his car. He also expects his landlord to try to sue him for the eight years’ worth of rent he is contracted to pay on his defunct restaurant’s space.

Many small businesses are also finding it onerous keep up with constantly changing local guidelines, while others are deciding that no matter what their local officials say, it just is not safe to keep going. Gabriel Gordon, the owner of a tiny but popular barbecue restaurant in Seal Beach, Calif., decided to close permanently after studying the restaurant’s layout. He had determined that the kitchen would never be safe for multiple staff members to occupy at once while the virus was still active in the area.

“It’s essentially two hallways that are 11 feet wide,” Mr. Gordon said, describing the shape of the restaurant, Beachwood BBQ. “There are food trucks that are larger than my kitchen.”

Whatever the specific reasons may be for each closure, Justin Norman, Yelp’s vice president of data science, said that the federal government should offer small businesses more help. Mr. Norman said Yelp was concerned about the effects of small-business closures, especially those owned by people of color, on society. Yelp, however, also has a financial interest in maintaining a robust small-business environment, because it relies heavily on advertising by businesses on its platform.

“The time is right now to inject more capital or we may lose them forever,” Mr. Norman said. “It’s going to make our economies worse, it’s going to make our communities worse.”

Commercial leases in New York City, COVID-19, Recent Protests and a Strategy to End or Terminate Commercial Leases

Commercial leases in New York City,
COVID-19, Recent Protests and a
Strategy to Terminate
Commercial Leases

As a result of COVID-19, recent protests and the advent of
technologies such as Zoom and Google Meet, many
tenants have excess office space/s that they cannot or
do not want to continue to rent and would like to end
or terminate their lease or stop paying rent. 

At Shenwick & Associates, we have received many calls 
from clients with these issues and we have developed a
strategy to address them. 

First, we review the company's financial information
including a recent balance sheet, income statement, 
the commercial lease and guaranty, if any. 

Second, we determine if the company is a candidate for
a bankruptcy filing, either chapter 7 (a liquidation where the
company closes as a result of the filing), a small business
Subchapter 5 bankruptcy filing, or a full-blown chapter 11
business bankruptcy filing. 

In the case of a Chapter 7 filing, the lease will terminate;
however, the Chapter 7 bankruptcy trustee appointed to
the case will also liquidate or close the business. For
businesses that are losing money or do not see a bright
future, this may be a good strategy. 

A company that wants to remain in business, but terminate
or reject their lease, should consider a bankruptcy filing
under  new Subchapter 5, which is a fast-paced, less
costly chapter 11 business bankruptcy filing. As part of a
Subchapter 5 bankruptcy filing, the lease can be rejected,
and the landlord would be paid their lease rejection
damages and other monies owed over 5 years or less from
disposable income of the business. 

If Subchapter V does not work due to the debt limit of
$7,500,000 or for other reasons, a company can consider
a full-blown chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. However, they
would want to consider the cost from a chapter 11 filing,
versus the expected savings from rejecting the lease.
Chapter 11 is a complicated, risky and expensive process
for many companies. 

Another strategy that we have been using with
much success is preparing a bankruptcy petition,
without filing the petition (a so called Pro-Forma
Bankruptcy Petition).

This bankruptcy petition would accurately disclose the
assets, liabilities and earnings of the company. Then we
would forward that bankruptcy petition to the landlord
or their counsel indicating that if the tenant and landlord
cannot reach an agreement where the tenant is allowed to
terminate their lease (pursuant to a Lease Surrender
Agreement), then the tenant or company will file for
bankruptcy. The benefit of this strategy is that it is quick,
relatively inexpensive, the landlord gets financial disclosure
regarding the company or tenants finances upfront
without litigation or discovery and we convince the landlord
that releasing the tenant from their lease is a “win-win” for
both the tenant and the landlord. 

How is this strategy a win for the landlord? The
landlord keeps the tenant’s security deposit, the
Landlord will also  save substantial money on
bankruptcy and landlord tenant legal fees, they
remove an unprofitable tenant from their building,
and they obtain possession of the premises quickly allowing
them to re-let the space. 

One of the reasons that we have had much success with this
strategy in these trying times is that we have been filing 
bankruptcy petitions  for individuals and businesses for
over 20 years and the landlord or their counsel can Pacer
our law firm’s bankruptcy filings, or visit our
website and blog. 

Based upon our work and experience in this area
of the law,
landlords realize that bankruptcy is a real option
for the tenant not an idle threat.

Clients or their advisors who would like to
discuss these strategies with Jim Shenwick
or schedule a consultation can reach him at:
phone: 212-541-6224
or email: jshenwick@gmail.com

We look forward to hearing from you

The federal government extended the Paycheck Protection Program after $130 billion out of $660 billion went uncollected. Here's what new applicants need to know.

July 5, 2020
Yahoo News

• The application deadline for the Paycheck Protection Program was extended on Saturday after President Donald Trump signed the extension bill that Congress passed into law.
  
• Potential applicants now have until August 8 to request federal relief funds under the program intended to help businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
  
• Around $130 billion in funds were left over when the original deadline came on June 30, with some businesses not knowing they are eligible for the program.
   
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

President Donald Trump on Saturday signed into law an amendment to the Paycheck Protection Program that gives businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic more time to apply for federal funds.

The law extends the deadline to apply for the federal government's loan-based relief program to August 8. The original deadline to apply for the loans was June 30, but Congress moved quickly to extend the deadline after around $130 billion was left over from the initial $660 billion pot, NPR reported.

The Senate initially approved the extension on Tuesday with unanimous consent, and the House of Representatives followed suit the next day. Trump signed the bill on July 4, giving potential recipients just over a month to apply for the remaining funds.

As of June 30, more than 4.8 million loans have been approved totaling $520 billion, with the average loan amount around $107,000, according to the Small Business Administration.

Here's what potential applicants should know before applying.

What are Paycheck Protection Program funds

Paycheck Program Funds are federally backed loans that businesses can apply for to help cover expenses and maintain worker levels. Though they start as loans, businesses that meet specific criteria from the SBA can apply to have their loans forgiven so that they don't need to be paid back.

Part of the program is that no fees will be attached to the loans for small businesses, no collateral is required, and repayment starts after six months. Interest rates are also set at 1%, according to the SBA.

Who can apply for Paycheck Protection Program Funds

While the program is intended for small businesses, that title covers more than just family-owned hardware stores and ice cream shops. As Business Insider's Dominick Reuter reported, freelancers and self-employed workers including gig-workers can also apply for funds.

Businesses with more than 500 employees can also access funds if they meet the SBA's size standards. Business owners who are unsure of whether their enterprise counts as a small business can use the SBA's size standards tool, located on its website.

What July and August applicants need to know

Loan applicants completing the process after June 5 are subject to new loan maturity guidelines. The SBA said recipients who applied before June 5 will be subject to a two-year maturity timeline while those applying after June 5 will have a five-year maturity timeline.

Loans are also processed through local banks and lenders to streamline the process as opposed to having the federal government do it. The SBA provides a list of which lenders can process applications for and issue PPP loans on its website.

How to get loans forgiven by the federal government

The SBA's website says loan forgiveness will be based on "employee retention criteria" and only be given if the funds are spent on "eligible expenses." The Payroll Protection Flexibility Act recently amended the program's rules so that only 60% of funds received have to go to payroll expenses in order for loans to be forgiven, as Business Insider's Joseph Zeballos-Roig reported.

Even if borrowers don't use 60% on payroll, they can still apply for partial forgiveness. Businesses seeking this option need to fill out a five-page form that can be found on the SBA's website to apply for forgiveness after reviewing the rules for forgiveness.

With pandemic, NYC taxi drivers' livelihoods hang in the balance CBS News July 5, 2020

We may tell our children in years to come that there was a time, especially if it was during rush hour on a rainy day, when you couldn't get a cab in New York City for love or money.  These days, the streets are mostly empty. It's estimated that 90% of the taxi business has dried up.

That's part of the reason why the city, with help from the National Guard, started a program that pays cab drivers to deliver food to low-income housebound residents.

Mouhamadou Aliyu, a yellow cab driver of many years standing, gets up before dawn to participate. He knows there's a health risk: "But this is my home, and yellow is what I do," he explained. "Right now, there is a pandemic. Our people, they are suffering. The city call us.  We are answering the call."

mouhamadou-aliyu-b-620.jpg
Yellow cab driver Mouhamadou Aliyu.  CBS NEWS
Drivers earn $53 a route. Each route entails about six deliveries, and it means waiting in line for hours to get fully loaded; lugging boxes of food up into crowded apartment complexes; and then cleaning up for the next run.

"It's very hard. It's very tough. Very challenging," Aliyu said.

Nine hours, most of it waiting; two delivery runs = $106 for a day's work. Not even close to the amount he needs to pay even a fraction of his monthly expenses. 

"But, we're still hopeful," Aliyu told "Sunday Morning" special contributor Ted Koppel. "We're New Yorkers. We don't give up!"

As a young immigrant from West Africa back in 1994, Aliyu saw Manhattan through rose-colored glasses: "I came here with nothing, nothing at all. This was my dream. As a yellow cab driver, to hold a medallion is like being on top of my game. This is where I want to be. This is the American dream."

In 2003, he became an American citizen. By 2004, Aliyu had learned that you don't get rich just driving a cab; to make money, he was told, you need to own the taxi – and to own it, you need a special license: a medallion.

taxi-medallion-620.jpg
 CBS NEWS
The city paid for ads promoting the deal as essentially risk-free; and it was New York City that has made literally billions of dollars selling these medallions at auction. When there are more buyers than medallions, the price goes up. That, in theory, is where even an immigrant cab driver could get rich: "So I said, 'Why not?' But, in order for me to place a bid to go for the medallion, I have to raise $20,000. But I have only $7,000. So, I apply for credit card. I get approved. I call them, I say, 'Can I use it for anything I want?' They say, 'Yes, it's your money. You can do whatever you want with it.'"

Koppel said, "Then you had $13,000 that you had on your two credit cards. $20,000 cash down, on a $331,000 bid."

"Yes, that would be a loan. And you have to pay for the car, gas, maintenance, all that. But still, life was good. Even I would say life was great."

Within about a year Aliyu's medallion had appreciated more than $100,000, and remarkably, the value kept rising. "Lucky me, I was able to buy a house here in the Bronx, a three-family house," He said. "So, things was good. And then, moving forward, the medallion value was going up. In 2013 the city auctioned medallion at $1,350,000."

Seven years ago – in theory, on paper – Aliyu was a millionaire.

taxi-medallion-headlines-620.jpg
 CBS NEWS
"The only reason that it was worth over a million dollars was that there was some other immigrant who could be taken advantage of to pay that amount," said New York Times reporter Brian Rosenthal. "And not really even pay that amount, but be trapped in a loan that would shackle them in debt for the rest of their lives."

Rosenthal won a Pulitzer Prize for his series exposing the taxi medallion scam. As he explained in the Times' documentary series "The Weekly," those medallions were money-makers … just not for the drivers.

"There was the city which sold the medallions, the brokers who collected commissions, and the bankers who wrote the loans and sold some of them for profit," he said. "And what we found in our reporting was that the value of the medallion went from $200,000 to over a million dollars, when the revenue that it had to bring in did not change at all.n Eventually, you realize that this wasn't by accident. Many insiders knew that the whole thing was a house of cards.

"The loans were never stable," Rosenthal said, "they were never sustainable, and they were always going to be a burden that was unpayable after this bubble popped. And that's what happened."

Last summer, the New York City Council held a hearing on what was called the owner-driver crisis.  Mouhamadou Aliyu was one of the witnesses:

"Every single day, every single hour, I think about taking my own life," he told city officials. "I think about suicide. The only thing that stops me is my four kids. If I do so, what's going to happen to them? I'm supposed to be a millionaire today, and I'm proud of it. And you guys are trying to take that away from me. It's not acceptable. I'm calling on you: Please! Please! Have mercy on us. Help us."

Koppel said of Aliyu's testimony, "He speaks rather plaintively of his status as a millionaire: I'm a millionaire. He's never gonna see that day again, is he?"

"No, he's not," Rosenthal said. "I mean, he deserves it. He works very hard. I've met hundreds of these cab drivers, and they all work extremely hard."

Many of the drivers are convinced that ride-share companies – like Lyft and Uber – ruined their business. Even without them, though, said Rosenthal, the medallion bubble had to burst.

Six months ago, said Aliyu, the medallion was worth less than $100,000. What he still owes on that medallion, however, is more than $600,000. The chances that he'll ever be able to pay that off? Slim and none.

One slender ray of sunshine: New York State's Attorney General is preparing to sue the City of New York to the tune of more than $800 million for misleading medallion owners. It could take years, and even that sum wouldn't make the drivers whole again.

And then, of course, there's the pandemic. Well over 50 cab drivers have died from the virus since March. Most drivers these days are staying home; the few available fares just aren't worth the health risk.

Aliyu said, "There is no more sleep. There is no night. At night we chat on the WhatsApp group, we're so worried. If nothing is done, when this pandemic will be over, the yellow cab industry will be over, too, will be finished."