Heartland Workforce Solutions has reopened their doors, and the need for their services was apparent when they opened Monday morning.
"At 7:30 the parking lot was already filled," Vickie Gregorio, the One Stop operator tells 6News. "And we came out to start setting stuff up and one of the customers had approached us, they had already created a list. They had already put themselves in order."
Heartland Workforce Solutions has been closed since April 7th, when operations moved to a different, more manageable site after the location at 57th and Ames was deep cleaned.
At Monday's reopening, Gregorio said things looked very different. "It's been a huge impact. People are having to wait outside as opposed to being inside."
Everyone has to sanitize their hands and wear a mask. Cones lined the sidewalk to keep people spread apart. Gregorio says only 10 people are allowed inside the office at once and they're kept at a distance. "It's been a lot trying to navigate all of those pieces."
The number of people needing their services has also jumped up. Before the pandemic, they'd see 50 to 60 people a day.
On Monday, before the 9:00 AM official open time, 38 people were already signed up to come inside. "We see for the three county area that we are responsible for, we're seeing about 43% of unemployment," Gregorio said.
Denny Smothers was one of those at Heartland Workforce Solutions Monday morning. He tells 6 News that he's been a school bus driver for Student Transportation of America for five years, but has been out of work now since March. "When spring break come, we left and went on spring break and then we never went back, because that's when the coronavirus kicked in."
Smothers has been filing for unemployment ever since. "Many of our school bus drivers are able to get the unemployment, which has sustained us and helped us," he said. "But I feel sorry for those who aren't able to do that."
Heartland Workforce Solutions will be open Monday through Friday 9:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m.
They have staff on hand to help Spanish speakers and those with visual impairments. The office will be closed Memorial Day.
(Photo courtesy of 6 News