A business group in New York City’s restaurant-rich borough of Brooklyn is gathering funds to provide small local operations walloped by the coronavirus pandemic with interest-free loans of up to $30,000.
About two-thirds of the relief funds will be channeled to restaurants and other small businesses owned by women and minorities, according to its administrator, the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce.
The Chamber discovered through a survey that 90% of those operators were turned down for a loan from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), the federal government’s major initiative for helping small businesses.
Across all Brooklyn enterprises, 84% of applicants failed to secure PPP funds, the Chamber said.
The Bring Brooklyn Back Fund was conceived to help neighborhood restaurants and other small businesses survive the pandemic. The Chamber is currently in the fund-raising stage. After the New York economy begins to reopen, the money will be made available to help places reopen or scale up to meet the volume. Currently, only takeout and delivery service can legally be provided by the borough's restaurants.
New York City has been a COVID-19 hot spot, with among the highest contamination rates in the country.
The Chamber indicated the fund currently amounts to $125,000. It intends to add to the fund by soliciting contributions from individuals, companies and local organizations.
“So many of Downtown Brooklyn’s businesses are closed or treading water amid the COVID-19 response,” Regina Myer, president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, said in a statement. “In the weeks and months ahead, the Bring Back Brooklyn Fund will be critical to reestablishing Brooklyn as a world class center for business and commerce.”
The borough has become a refuge for restaurant entrepreneurs looking to escape the high costs of doing business in Manhattan.
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