14 MAY 21, 2020 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Queens lawmakers call for city’s small business relief
eff orts to refocus on boroughs outside of Manhattan
Senator Jessica Ramos and Councilman Costa Constantinides File photo/QNS
BY ANGÉLICA ACEVEDO
AACEVEDO@SCHNEPSMEDIA.COM
@QNS
State Senator Jessica Ramos
and Councilman Costa Constantinides
are calling for the
city’s small business COVID-19 relief
programs to refocus their efforts on
helping small businesses outside of
Manhattan, which has received the
majority of the financial assistance
to date.
“Our small businesses all over New
York City are suffering through the
COVID-19 crisis, yet only ones in
Manhattan benefited most from SBS
relief,” said Ramos, who represents
Senate District 13, home to some of
the hardest-hit neighborhoods in
Queens, including Jackson Heights
and East Elmhurst. “The city must
create a robust plan to reach out to
our small businesses, many of which
here in western Queens are owned
by immigrant families, to create constructive
ways to give them help.”
The lawmakers’ call comes after
new statistics showed Manhattan
small businesses accounted for the
majority of the 2,600 businesses that
have received payouts from two of
the Small Businesses Services (SBS)
relief programs.
As reported by the Gothamist, of
the $20 million for NYC Business
Continuity Loan Fund, 66 percent
went to businesses based in Manhattan.
Meanwhile, Brooklyn received
18 percent, Queens received
9 percent, Staten Island received 5
percent and the Bronx received less
than 1 percent.
For the city’s $40 million grant
program, NYC Employee Retention
Grant, the trend continued with 53
percent going to Manhattan businesses,
25 percent for Brooklyn, 16
percent for Queens and three percent
for both the Bronx and Staten
Island.
“Western Queens’ small businesses
represent the American dream,
with owners and workers who come
from every corner of the globe,” said
Constantinides, who represents
Council District 22, which includes
Astoria and parts of East Elmhurst
and Jackson Heights. “Yet so many
barriers keep them from accessing
vital city services or support — especially
now. Without a full-scale plan
to reach out to our small businesses,
access their needs, and adapt, this
will be a tale of two recoveries.”
On May 11, Ramos and Constantinides
sent a joint letter asking the
city formally take the issue to Mayor
Bill de Blasio, new Commissioner of
SBS Jonnel Doris and Gregg Bishop,
newly appointed Senior Advisor for
Small Business COVID-19 Recovery
and former Commissioner of Small
Business Services (SBS).
They wrote SBS and the city
should prioritize immigrant- or
minority-owned small businesses
— such as the bodegas, dry cleaners,
bakeries and shoe repair shops — in
Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and
Staten Island, as the city begins to
plan how to restart the economy
once COVID-19 is curbed.
They also pointed out that the
city doesn’t have a “data-driven
approach to identifying small businesses
and a system to establish
communicative relationships with
them,” in their letter.
“The fact that a vast majority of
the city’s financial relief went to
Manhattan businesses demonstrates
that smaller, neighborhood-based,
immigrant or minority owned
businesses in the ‘outer-boroughs,’ a
term we loathe to use, likely did not
know that these programs existed
or didn’t understand how to apply,”
the lawmakers wrote in the letter.
“This is a problem we see time and
again. It’s usually the folks who are
not foreign born, have better education
access, and are wealthier from
the start who best understand how
to access government resources.”
In response to the lawmakers’ call,
an SBS spokesperson told QNS they
created the two relief programs with
the understanding that the needs of
entrepreneurs outweighed available
resources, as a rapid response
to the ongoing crisis small business
owners face.
The SBS spokesperson said they
continue supporting businesses by
helping them apply to their relief
programs and the federal government’s
PPP as well as through their
series of technical assistance webinars
that provide an overview of
more available assistance for small
businesses impacted by COVID-19
from federal, private, philanthropic,
nonprofit levels, among others.
“To date, SBS has connected small
businesses to over $60 million in
local and federal grant and loan
funding since the beginning of the
COVID-19 crisis. Small businesses
need us now more than ever and
we must all work to support them
in a consistent and direct way,” the
spokesperson said. “New York City
business owners can visit us at nyc.
gov/covid19biz or call 311 to request
technical assistance regarding preparing
your financials for future
financial resources and to learn
about other resources for small
business owners.”
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