Thank you, Representative Roybal-Allard and Senator Padilla and Maria Salinas for hosting this timely and critical townhall.
It is a treat for me to be back in LA, at least virtually. And with the friends and amazing leaders I grew up admiring.
Congresswoman, your district feels like home for me. My father Dr. Juan Casillas started his first veterinary hospital in East LA and later in Maywood, Huntington Park, Lynwood, Montebello… I watched him put everything he had into his businesses to pursue the American dream and support his family. These vibrant communities always gave back to him, sustained and fortified him – and me and my brothers and sisters as well.
This is also where I had my first political experience. Congresswoman Roybal-Allard …as a young girl, I volunteered on one of your campaigns making phone calls. You’re an iconic Latina role model representing possibility and opportunity for so many of us. It is truly a privilege to be back here today.
I particularly want to thank you for all that you’ve done to help local small businesses during this pandemic. Your town halls on the PPP and EIDL programs helped get crucial information out to LA’s entrepreneurs. We need champions like you to connect resources to businesses. Thank you for collaborating with the SBA LA District Office helping Victor and Ben and the entire team to get relief funding where it’s needed most. I look forward to our continued partnership so we can help our small businesses through this pandemic and into recovery and beyond.
I also want to thank Senator Padilla for his support. Thank you again for introducing me at my Senate confirmation hearing … it was important to have your familiar face and steady voice by my side to give me a strong foundation to kick off my hearing. Your support that day was very meaningful to me – especially because you’ve been such a strong voice for Californians including as Secretary of State with small businesses – which I witnessed first-hand when I was CA’s Small Business Advocate. We are all so glad Governor Newsom appointed you to represent California in DC.
LA and especially the congresswoman’s district is where my heart is as it’s where my passion for small businesses was born. I’ve been a small business owner, helped startups grow and been their advocate, most recently in CA … and I know how hard the past year has been in this region. I understand how this pandemic has ripped through your neighborhoods – COVID-19 has devastated too many families and cut too many lives short, while turning our local economies upside down. …
LA was built by small businesses. Our community is sustained by small businesses. That’s why the best way to build back better is to give small businesses the support they need to recover and rebuild.
As President Biden said: “Getting our economy back means bringing our small businesses back.”
And thanks to members of Congress like Congresswoman Roybal-Allard and Senator Padilla, help is here.
The American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion dollar relief package, was signed into law last month by President Biden. With billions in targeted relief for small businesses and real solutions to control the pandemic, the American Rescue Plan promises to change the course of our economic crisis and help our communities and businesses recover. And the SBA has a big part to play in implementing relief.
The plan includes critical help for small businesses such as the $28.6 billion dollar Restaurant Relief Fund…which will provide immediate financial support in the form of grants – not loans – to restaurants, and other food and beverage service businesses. The program allocates a minimum grant of $1,000 – and a maximum of $5 million per location and $10 million total for each entity.
The restaurant industry here in California and across the nation, is such a big driver of the economy. Our neighborhood restaurants oftentimes are the heart of our main streets. And the pandemic has had a massive impact. Restaurants were among the first to close and, across the nation, many are still operating under limited occupancy, takeout only or al fresco or outdoor dining.
In California alone, nearly 1 million restaurant jobs were lost. And while many of these jobs have come back with the limited reopening of restaurants, thousands have shut down permanently.
We’ve designed the Restaurant Revitalization program with my values of equity, customer-centric design and technology-driven innovation to ensure help goes to those who need it most – swiftly and effectively. Congress directed us to define “restaurants” broadly to ensure that the smallest businesses – the street vendors, carts and food trucks that make the LA restaurant scene among the most vibrant and diverse in the world –aren’t left out.
We also are setting aside more than $9 billion of the 28.6 billion to help smaller establishments – which is so important in this first come first serve program.
In addition, Congress mandated a 21-day priority period for small businesses owned by women, veterans, and socially or economically disadvantaged people – those who suffered the most from the pandemic.
Congress created this priority recognizing that these businesses have been more impacted by COVID and have had less access to relief. As of February, more than half of U.S. minority-led businesses reported a drop in sales compared with the previous years — 6 percentage points higher than other small businesses. Almost two-thirds of Black-led businesses and almost half of Hispanic-led ones reported a more than 50 percent drop in sales.
And the virus has disproportionately affected Latinos who have been among the hardest hit by COVID-19 across the nation. For Latino small businesses, the data is stark -- 32 percent of Latino-owned businesses closed in just three months in 2020 – which was almost double the number of white-owned businesses that closed in the same period. And reopening has been challenging.
Our incredible team at SBA is working as quickly as possible to have the Restaurant Revitalization Fund up and running soon, so please spread the word so businesses can get ready for our launch. We’ve tried to design a process as simple as possible while ensuring the funds get into the hands of those businesses it was meant to serve. We wanted to ensure that those without formal business structures in place, or those who struggle with language barriers, or who lack reliable technology, or face other challenges are still able to apply.
We’re also working with eligible point-of-sale vendors that already work with many restaurants – the full list of companies is being finalized but the great news is that they will publish or redirect their restaurants clients from their site to the grant program application or website; and they are also prepared to help their restaurant clients create the data they need to apply to the program; and help them start their application.
This will be a first-of-its-kind collaboration that paves the way for future innovations in better getting much-needed relief directly to small businesses. We need to meet our small businesses where they are.
And, for the first time in our history, we’ll have our direct application portal available in two languages – English and Spanish. We’re also planning to roll out translation services in eight more languages.
The American Rescue Plan also added more funding for our Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program – the program will give out $16.2 billion dollars in grants to operators of concert halls, movie theaters, stages and other venues – to help them continue to pay their staff and keep up on maintenance until we can bring back the performances and experiences that are the lifeblood of our American culture.
This is an important program for the LA area.Entertainment helps drive our economy. For example, every dollar spent on a concert ticket, another $12 dollars are spent in local businesses such as bars and restaurants according to LA Weekly.
This program is coming soon – and while we had originally hoped to roll out this funding last week, technical difficulties have set us back. Our team and our vendor are working around the clock to roll out this program because we know how many venue operators are desperately in need of relief.
We will continue to share updates and give applicants advance notice so they can be best prepared for when the application portal reopens.
For our independent contractors, sole proprietors and smallest of the small businesses, the American Rescue Plan included $15 billion dollars in grants to hardest hit small businesses. This includes $10 billion for those who had applied for Economic Injury Disaster Loans, or EIDL Advance but either did not receive the full $10,000 or had applied after money ran out. The SBA is reaching out via email to the priority groups which include businesses in low-income communities who suffered high economic loss –The Plan also included an additional $5 billion for Supplemental Targeted EIDL Advance payments of $5000 for the smallest of the small with 10 and under employees who suffered a more extreme economic loss. We are rolling out these programs in stages and if you had applied to EIDL Advance last year, you will be contacted if you are eligible.
Our EIDL program has been an important lifeline for millions of businesses.
But I understand that so much more is needed. That’s why, as one of my first acts as SBA administrator, I raised the cap on EIDL Loans to $500,000 dollars and extended the loss period to 24 months as last year businesses who applied couldn’t receive more than $150,000 even if they were eligible for more.
We’re also making plans to further increase EIDL eligibility up to the full amount of $2 million that Congress had originally intended.
The American Rescue Plan also allocated another $7.25 billion dollars to the Paycheck Protection Program or PPP.. For the last few months, SBA has been focusing on getting PPP to the smallest businesses–We’ve also changed many of the rules around the PPP loans -- Entrepreneurs with non-fraud felony convictions can access the program. Delinquency or default on federal student loan debt is no longer disqualifying. And non-citizen small business owners who are lawful U.S. residents now have clarity that they can use their Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) to apply for the PPP.
This is why this town hall is so important and I’m so glad you all took the time out of your busy schedules to join. Hopefully many of you can take advantage of these programs or if you are representing our local chambers, you can help support LA area businesses in accessing these programs. You will be hearing from my amazing SBA field leaders in a moment with more details on how to apply to these programs, but know that there are many ways to stay connected with the SBA and all of our programs. I encourage you to build relationships with our local SBA staff, our small business centers, and the chambers on this call.
The SBA funds an incredible network of resource partners in this community and they have advisors ready to help you with these relief programs, local programs and more.
There is the Los Angeles SBDC Network, as well as the Long Beach City College SBDC, the Pasadena City College SBDC and the Pacific Coast Regional Small Business Development Center.
SBA also has several women’s business centers in the area – including the PACE Women's Business Center and the Asian Pacific Islander Small Business Program Women's Business Center.
We know our small businesses need a team behind them to be successful so lean on the SBA’s LA District Office – or any of these other local resource centers when you are looking for help, funding, or new ways to do business and expand.
That’s why we’re here. That’s our mission. And I can tell you that every member of the SBA staff lives that mission passionately.
It’s what makes me so proud to lead this agency. And it’s what makes my vision for the SBA possible.
Under my leadership, the SBA will build bring businesses back, create jobs and build an equitable economy that works for everyone.
We know that too many of the smallest businesses have been left behind, – particularly those owned by women and people of color who were starting businesses at the highest rates. And those disparities and barriers to opportunity were not just prevalent during this pandemic, but historically.
I am committed to an equitable economy that works for everyone.
I’ve directed my staff to look at every program, every resource and every service we provide – and think about how to make each one more accessible to all of our small business owners and entrepreneurs.
We need to make sure all our great small businesses and entrepreneurs can access opportunities to grow so that we don’t leave any great ideas on the table. If we support ALL small businesses we can better ensure jobs are created and our economy grows.
As President Biden and Vice President Harris have said, equity is essential for building a stronger country for us ALL.
While I’m implementing an SBA-wide equitable approach for fairness for all our entrepreneurs … I’m also committed to designing our programs with the customer in mind.
We’ve heard that too often the complex government processes or challenging barriers keep our nation’s small businesses from getting the help they need from us.
We’re listening.
Across the SBA, I’ve told my staff that we need to be more like the small businesses we serve and think about our customers first. We need to improve how our small businesses experience our services, while still protecting your tax dollars to make sure relief and support get into the right hands. For the past year during COVID, we’ve asked small businesses to pivot and adapt, and that is exactly what we need to do at the SBA.
There’s no question that this pandemic has changed the way we’ll do business forever.
This SBA is not your grandfathers’ SBA. It has gone from a $40 billion portfolio – to nearly $1 trillion in relief.
We’re working with more lenders than ever. We’ve vastly increased our direct lending and grants. And we’re meeting heightened demand, as well as increased awareness of our services.
Right now, we’re focused on providing immediate relief to our small businesses. But we’re also looking to the future to build long-term recovery to help our small businesses grow and thrive. Our government guaranteed loan programs (the 7a and 504 loans) will be a big part of that, as well as our government contracting, international trade programs, investments and innovation initiatives as we continue to help our small businesses build wealth in their communities.
Because as President Biden said, we can’t just return to where we were before the pandemic – we need to build our country and economy back better.
I want our 30 million small businesses and innovative startups to feel like the giants they are in this economy.
I intend to be that voice for small businesses and help them succeed..
Because our neighborhoods, our communities – our nation – can’t flourish without them.
Thank you.