More than a quarter of the region’s food trucks have suspended operations amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new survey from the DMV Food Truck Association.

The mobile vendors that once flocked to parks in downtown D.C. and lined up at the L’Enfant Plaza office complex have lost their hungry customers since stay-at-home orders went into effect last month. That loss of dependable lunch business has sent food truck proprietors clamoring for loans, grants, and new parking locations in residential neighborhoods while the region’s traditional hospitality sector sees torpedoed revenues and mass layoffs.

“There’s no blunting the economic effects of the coronavirus, even for an industry known for its ability to innovate and adapt to change,” Zack Graybill, the chair of the food truck association’s board, said in a statement last Monday.

Since March 16, the decade-old association has conducted three surveys about the coronavirus’ impact on its members. The latest survey found that 28 percent of vendors have temporarily closed or suspended business.

Layoffs and furloughs also have increased over the last month. Ninety percent of the vendors surveyed laid off or furloughed staff, compared to 33 percent in mid-March and 66 percent on March 23. Before the pandemic, most of these food trucks employed fewer than nine people, with 70 percent employing three or less, adds Graybill.

Until food-truck customers can return to their usual workplaces, vendors are trying to reduce their financial losses by applying for government assistance. Eighty-two percent of those surveyed applied for the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, while 54 percent applied for the SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program and 36 percent sought local grants or loans. (As of this week, the $349 billion Paycheck Protection Program, which is meant to help businesses keep workers on payroll, has run out of initial funding for low-interest loans.)

But applying for loans and grants is different than actually receiving them. Over a Slack-type messaging board called Band, members of the DMV Food Truck Association have shared their gripes over the lack of status updates about those public funds.

“There’s a lot of exhaustion,” Graybill tells DCist. “There’s a lot of depression going on because the government isn’t telling us stuff. They said they’re trying to get money available but nobody was getting updates with actual information.”

On March 31, the association submitted an application to D.C.’s $25 million Small Business Recovery Microgrants program, which offers grants to local businesses, independent contractors, and nonprofits to pay for “short-term financial needs,” including rent and inventory, and their employees’ wages. The District says it expects to begin making award decisions for the program this month.

For his own food-truck business, DC Slices, Graybill applied to the SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan program in March, becoming one of millions of small-business owners stuck in a waiting game for backlogged assistance. He received $10,000 just this week.

The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the program has “all but collapsed” due to a tidal wave of applications as well as a funding shortage, with the SBA restricting businesses to grants of $1,000 per employee and considering changes to the program’s rules. “That decree of $1,000 per [employee] was a very recent change-up,” says Graybill. “That constant change-up has made things much more confusing and super demoralizing to people.”

Mounir Elhilali, the co-owner of food truck Crêpes Parfait, says he hasn’t received word on the status of his D.C. Microgrant or EIDL loan application. He also applied to the SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program but didn’t qualify because he employs only himself and a business partner for his crêpe truck. “It doesn’t help self-employed people,” Elhilali says of the latter program, noting that he’s consulting with his accountant for financial advice.

While Elhilali waits for potential government funds, he continues to hit the streets to do what business he can. It doesn’t always pay off, though: His bet in early April that federal workers would still show up for lunch at L’Enfant Plaza largely failed. “For the first two days, we probably sold two or three orders,” he says. “We decided to just abandon it.”

So he’s venturing to different areas in the city, including other parts of Southwest where there are more apartment complexes. (The Southwest Duck Pond, popular with locals, is one of the better spots, and on a good day Elhilali will make $200 there.) While the work keeps him going mentally, he says he’s not breaking even. The same mobility that once offered him the freedom to shuffle between lunch crowds at Metro Center and Union Station now poses a new gamble each day.

“Every time we try a [different] area we’re taking a risk,” the crêpe purveyor says. “Sometimes we go and we might sell zero. We had customers who have come to us for seven years now. They’re not around so we have to start from scratch.”

According to the DMV Food Truck Association’s survey results, it’s not just Elhilali who’s adapting to the turbulent times: 29 percent of vendors reported increasing their delivery services in recent weeks, and 45 percent have pivoted their business to residential neighborhoods.

Jason Tipton, the co-owner of Dirty South Deli, is among the latter group. He says he’s found new business thanks to a network of friends who blast out emails to their local listservs and host his sandwich truck in their suburban driveways. In some cases, Tipton adds, business is better than it would normally be on commercial streets.

“That’s one of the advantages over brick-and-mortar restaurants, just by the nature of what we’re able to do we can adapt to changing market conditions,” he says. “We used to sell where people used to work. Now they’re eating lunch at home so let’s go to their houses.”