Houston, TX – November 25, 2024 – The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Resilience Innovation Hub's Future Proofing America Collaborative (tm) officially launched a groundbreaking partnership today during a ceremonial agreement signing in Houston, Texas. This collaboration seeks to provide small businesses, homeowners, and communities with enhanced tools, innovative resources, access to a broad array of funding-financing, and expert guidance to strengthen disaster preparedness and foster long-term economic recovery.
Francisco Sánchez, SBA associate administrator, joined Richard Seline, managing director of the Resilience Innovation Hub, alongside local community leaders, business owners, and stakeholders to emphasize the importance of equipping small businesses to withstand and recover from disasters.
“Houston is home, and I’ve seen firsthand the strength and resilience of our communities in the face of disasters,” said Francisco Sánchez, Jr., associate administrator for the Office of Disaster Recovery and Resilience at the SBA. “This partnership with the Resilience Innovation Hub brings together innovation and expertise to provide small businesses and communities with the tools they need to prepare for and recover from whatever challenges come their way.”
The partnership underscores the SBA’s dedication to empowering small businesses with the tools, knowledge, and resources they need to prepare for disasters and recover effectively. By integrating the Hub’s Future Proofing America standards of practice, advanced technologies, and alternative capital formation, the collaboration will drive resilience-focused solutions tailored to the unique needs of small businesses and underserved communities.
"Unfortunately, the Greater Houston and Texas Gulf Coast has had its share of $1 billion plus back-to-back disasters leading to rising insurance costs and gaps, mortgage defaults, devaluation of assets, negative effects on economic competitiveness, and frustrated taxpayers having to constantly rebuild. Future proofing America's homes, neighborhoods, communities is a positive response to these financial, economic, fiscal, AND societal challenges. We are honored to support and work with the SBA to achieve a 1:6 or better cost benefit from pre-disaster mitigation and investment," said Richard Seline.
The SBA Office of Disaster Recovery and Resilience (ODR&R) provides critical support to small businesses, homeowners, nonprofits, and renters in disaster planning, recovery, and resilience development. This new partnership with the Hub's Future Proofing America Collaborative enhances SBA’s ability to address the growing risks of natural disasters, offering innovative approaches that combine expert guidance and practical solutions for adapting to a changing environment, thereby fortifying the current and next generation of small businesses and homes.
Together, SBA and the Hub's Future Proofing America Collaborative focus on more efficient and effective public-private-philanthropic partnerships for accelerating communities from surviving to thriving, from high rates of failure to growing generational wealth and economically-strong enterprises.
The Resilience Innovation Hub, located in Houston’s Amegy Bank on Main Tower, serves as a facilitator for transforming the Nation's risk exposure by working with leading firms in design, architecture, engineering, construction, real estate, data analytics, green and sustainable, innovative technology and equipment, financial services, ratings agencies, and investors to retrofit and develop residential, commercial, public- sector assets, especially in underserved locations.
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About the U.S. Small Business Administration
The U.S. Small Business Administration helps power the American dream of business ownership. As the only go-to resource and voice for small businesses backed by the strength of the federal government, the SBA empowers entrepreneurs and small business owners with the resources and support they need to start, grow or expand their businesses, or recover from a declared disaster. It delivers services through an extensive network of SBA field offices and partnerships with public and private organizations. To learn more, visit www.sba.gov.