IE Business Daily Business news for the Inland Empire.
Several local business owners say they haven’t gotten the help they sought from the CARES-Act, the federal emergency program set up in part to help small businesses get through the COVID-19 crisis.
Maritza Gomez, founder and owner of MG Custom Printing in Riverside, hoped to get some help from the Paycheck Protection Program, one of several federal initiatives intended to help small businesses survive COVID-19.
Gomez, whose company makes gifts and promotional products – including coffee mugs, keychains, t-shirts, hats – for businesses and other organizations, hoped to get $6,000 to help her meet payroll. She came up short.
Five thousand two hundred and fifty dollars short, to be exact.
“They said the program is designed to help small businesses keep their employees, but it doesn’t seem to be working that way,” said Gomez, a Cal State San Bernardino graduate who started MG Custom Printing five years ago. She runs the business out of her home and has one full-time employee.
Gomez applied for the loan through the Bank of America and spent about three hours filling out the paperwork. She was surprised when she learned that she would get only a fraction of the amount she requested.
While she still has her lone employee, MG Custom’s immediate future remains murky.
“I’m still meeting my payroll, but I don’t know how long I can keep doing that,” Gomez said. “Seven hundred and fifty dollars will be gone in a week or two. It’s something, it’s better than nothing, but it’s not a lot.”
At least Gomez got something.
Claudia Gilles, who manages an interior design business out of her Riverside home, asked for $10,000 from the Economics Injury Disaster Loan Program but was denied.
Gilles, who started the business eight years ago and is its only employee, said she needed the money to help keep her three clients.
“I was kind of surprised,” Gilles said. “My business has always been up and down, and lately it’s been a little slow. I could have used the money, but I didn’t get anything. I’ve heard a lot of businesses that applied haven’t gotten anything.”
Both the Paycheck Protection and Economic Injury Disaster Loan programs are part of the CARES Act that the House and Senate approved and President Trump signed into law in March.
By then, the grave threat the Coronavirus disease presented to the economy was apparent, and the federal government was under pressure to do something that would help small businesses – meaning any with fewer than 500 employees – to stay afloat.
In April, the Senate and House passed a $484 billion stimulus package aimed at small businesses that increased funding for the Paycheck Protection Program by $310 billion.
That bill, which President Trump quickly signed into law, also increased the budget for Small Business Administration emergency loans by $60 billion, provided $75 billion to hospitals and set aside $25 billion for a new coronavirus testing program.
That was the second attempt by the federal government to help small businesses get through the worst public health crisis in memory. In March, it passed a $350 billion relief package – the start of the Paycheck Protection Program, which is part of the CARES Act – that was gone in two weeks.
About $33.4 billion of that went to businesses in California, said Christopher Lorenzana, deputy director of the Small Business Administration’s Santa Ana office, which covers Riverside, Orange and San Bernardino counties.
“We did more business in 14 days than we did in the previous 14 years,” Lorenzana said at the time.
A Paycheck Protection Loan can be as much as $10 million, depending on how much revenue a business generates and how many people it employs. An Economic Injury Disaster loan can reach $10 million, with some of that funding designated as “advanced” emergency loans that the borrower is not required to pay back,.
Those who aren’t helped by the Paycheck Protection or Economic Injury programs can go to the state for help, or they can find a local program to assist them, said Michelle Skiljan, executive director of the Inland Empire Women’s Business Center.
“I’m finding a lot of people who are eligible for help but they aren’t applying for it,” Skiljan said. “There are a lot of possibilities. People just need to find them and go after them.”
Marylee McIntyre, founder and owner of Boo’s Organic Oven, a bakery in Joshua Tree, asked for $42,000 from Paycheck Protection and was told she was eligible for $42,000, if her business was incorporated.
However, McIntyre is a sole proprietor, which meant she was eligible for only $16,800, of that she has received $10,000, which came from the Economic Injury Disaster program. McIntyre recently had to let four of her 11 employees go, and she needs some financial help to bring them back.
“They based it on my income, not the number of people I employ,” said McIntyre, who opened the business in July.
Still, the money has helped, and there could be more on the way.
“We’re still bleeding, and there’s still a lot of stress, but it’s not as bad as it was,” McIntyre said. “Our numbers are getting better. We’re still lean and mean.”
