Creating Social Sustainability Initiatives in an Effort to Increase Profits for the Underserved

Background

New and ongoing waves of the Coronavirus pandemic have essentially stalled foot traffic in several urban city areas. In many urban areas, businesses cannot run the way they did, at least not now with what 2022 has ushered in. 2022 has brought a new year and the presence of the Omnicron variant, resulting in another financial blow to specific industries (Haag, 2020). No longer can financial metrics of the pre-COVID 19 eras be used as indicators of overall growth, “COVID-19 totally reset everything for everyone, whether you are a 30-year-old business or one that has been up for 30 seconds” (Wood, 2021). The damage the COVID-19 pandemic has inflicted on the global economy has been substantial. “The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that the median global GDP dropped by 3.9% from 2019 to 2020” (World Economic Outlook, 2022). Analytically, this places the COVID-19 pandemic in place as the most destructive economic downturn since the Great Depression. Likewise, the uncertainties involved in the economic rescue of countries poses a conundrum that has provoked considerable tension in recovery efforts. These recovery efforts need to be considered in tandem with prospective courses of economic alleviating measures, vaccine roll-out, and how varying societies acclimate to the constant evolving COVID-19 pandemic variants in order to lessen both economic and communal tension (World Economic Outlook, 2022).

One sector that has felt the effects are the numerous Brooklyn hair salons and barbershops that line the streets of the Crown Heights and Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhoods. Bedford Stuyvesant and Crown Heights harbor sizable denizens of African diaspora descent. Since the late 1960s, myriads of Caribbean, African American, and African people have anointed these neighborhoods as home (Lemann, 1992). Crown Heights and Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhoods are emblematic staples of black and brown culture as well as entrepreneurship. However, black and brown-owned companies are more than simple confirmations of enterprise ownership. Black and brown-owned businesses are palimpsests with every day of operations revealing the complex levels present in chasing the American dream. A dream where market participation must coexist in an atmosphere where structural racism and discrimination serve as scaffolds (Fairlie, 2014).

Prompted by the historiographical evidence of the significance that barbers and stylists hold in black and brown culture, the researchers engaged in a quest to identify interventions that would protect such emblems of the community. Barbershops and salons provide beautification and grooming experiences. Likewise, in black and brown neighborhoods, these shops serve as a critical residence for black and brown community life (Mills, 2013). These shop owners, most of whom have been in the community for at least the last ten years prior to 2022, provide a real connection to communities often marginalized and extricated from mass media (Mills, 2013). As the time and global burden of the COVID-19 pandemic have increased, these businesses are having difficulty remaining afloat. During a recent study by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), an agency monitoring entrepreneurship as a driver of societal health and wealth, even amongst businesses that closed gender differences were noted with women more likely to report a business closure by 20% than their male counterpart (Lonescu, 2022). Many have taken on extra employment, lowered costs, reduced their workforce, all to report during the researchers’ findings that this may very well be their last year open. Some have been ravaged by the loss of clients, family, and friends.