- Welcome to Crosscut.

Now, the show that takes you beyond the breaking news goes deeper into the issues you care about and brings awareness to the stories affecting communities.

In today's episode, we uncover what an investigation of a Washington grant program for struggling small businesses.

During the pandemic found.

We'll also look into the steady decline of Native American student enrollment and higher education in the state.

Plus Aberdeen Mobile Home Park residents are more hopeful after new developments from the State Attorney General's ongoing investigation and into their complaint.

I'm Paris Jackson.

In today's episode, thousands of struggling Washington businesses receive state grant funds during the pandemic.

Our investigation looks into what businesses receive those dollars and how one agency could have contributed to barriers.

For others.

A state grant program aimed to keep struggling small businesses, including those businesses owned by people of color afloat during C O V I D helped thousands, but newly released data shows mixed success on the equity of those payments.

The state funded nearly half billion dollar working Washington grant program funneled federal pandemic cash to close to 25,000 businesses with fewer strings attached and less documentation than other federal programs such as the Paycheck protection program loans, the state cap, the size of businesses eligible to apply.

Officials also directed the State Department of Commerce to prioritize historically disadvantaged businesses such as those owned by black, indigenous, and people of color.

When Crosscut asked the Commerce Department if funding was equitably dispersed across racial and ethnic groups, a department officials said they didn't know.

It's unclear if the program succeeded in targeting smaller, underserved businesses and communities of color, in part due to inconsistent tracking of recipient data.

Let's get to Crosscut investigative reporter, Brandon Block to break down the successes and failures he found in examining the Working Washington program.

Welcome, Brandon.

Thank you for joining us.

There were many federal and state programs during the height of covid to help businesses, but some of those led to fraud.

What sparked your particular interest in a state run program here?

- The initial impulse for writing about this program was that it hadn't been written about very much before.

I wrote previously for Crosscut about the paycheck protection program, which was the big federal business loan program that ended up being pretty susceptible to fraud, and most people have heard of that.

And also you can go look up who got a P P P loan.

There's multiple databases where, where anyone can go see that information.

But with the state program working Washington, there's really no information available online about exactly who received those funds.

As part of the story, we requested that data from the state and are publishing it, and so I, I think the impulse was just to make that information accessible in a way that it wasn't before.

- And that's information that you found was multi-layered.

There were so much data within that.

What were some of those highlights, things that really stood out to you?

I - Think one of the interesting things and potentially surprising things that we found was that although the program was meant to be specifically targeted to small businesses, and this was defined pretty specifically by legislators as businesses that earn less than $5 million in revenue in the year prior to when these funds went out, we actually saw multiple instances of some pretty large corporate organizations that reward significant funds, sometimes multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars.

- And another caveat that you also found as you were digging into these data points is the, there were Washington officials that said this money also, they wanted to target those disadvantaged business owners, those Bipo folks.

And one thing that came up is that necessarily wasn't the case.

What did you find in in that regard?

- When I asked the State Department of Commerce, which was in charge of distributing these funds, they didn't know whether or not that ultimately was the case, whether, whether certain groups were prioritized when the money was allocated.

This was during the emergency order, and the Department of Financial Management specifically directed these funds to prioritize historically disadvantaged was the term that they used.

But when we interviewed the department who was in charge of distributing the money, they didn't know whether that had happened and they didn't really have any metrics for assessing whether or not they succeeded in that goal.

And in our data analysis, we found that a pretty low percentage of the funds in the rounds that that we were able to crunch actually went to businesses that self-identified as as black or indigenous.

- What was also interesting in your reporting was the range of these grants that were doled out to businesses kind of speak upon why there was such a broad range for certain businesses.

- This program, money went out over the period of over two years in, in multiple rounds.

And then over time, the grants got bigger.

They started out at around $10,000 and by the final round, some of them were up to as much as $170,000.

There were also on the low end, there was a beauty salon in Dayton that got $40.

Oh - My goodness.

Wow.

- Not entirely sure what happened there, but yeah, the, the range was, was quite broad.

- Brandon, it was a pleasure speaking with you today.

Thanks for having me.

Absolutely.

If you wanna read more about Brandon's complete full investigative story, go to crosscut.com for more.

The pandemic exacerbated a decrease in indigenous college enrollment in Washington.

Coming up, you'll learn what W S U is doing to attract native students.

Washington State institutions of higher education like Washington State University are dealing with a major decline in American Indian student enrollment citing the pandemic as one significant reason.

A Washington Student Achievement Council report found between 2019 and 2022, that enrollment by American Indian and Alaska native students dropped nearly by 40% at state community and technical colleges.

During the pandemic and normal times, many native students struggle to get into Washington colleges and universities.

The National Center for Education Statistics says nationally American Indians have the lowest college enrollment of any ethnic group in the nation for many different reasons, such as needing more financial aid, being less prepared for college because they attend high schools with less access to college prep courses and having fewer family members who attended college.

W SS U has native student recruitment experts in Pullman and at each of its branch campuses and college officials say they're in a building stage.

Did the owners of an Aberdeen mobile home park violate tenant protections will explain what the State Attorney General's preliminary investigation found.

Aberdeen mobile home residents have positive news to celebrate.

After the Attorney General's office recently corroborated complaints outlined in a crosscut investigation into rent increases in fees at dozens of statewide mobile parks.

Recently, the Washington Attorney's General's office proposed rescinding recent rent hikes and reducing penalty fees at Leisure Manner Estates after releasing preliminary investigation findings alleging the management company Hurst and son L L C violated several tenant protection laws.

In an early October, email assistant AG Sebastian Miller wrote Crosscut that the State's manufactured housing dispute resolution program outlined findings and proposed resolutions regarding complaints from tenants at the Aberdeen Park.

Preliminary findings from the ags office also allege unlawful changes to lease agreements, rental rates, and tenant maintenance obligations.

Hurston's sun tenants and housing advocates have criticized the rental increases throughout the state as economic eviction.

I'm Paris Jackson.

Thanks for watching Crosscut.

Now, your destination for nonprofit Northwest News.

Go to crosscut.com for more.