U.S. Small Business Administration representatives are in Vermont helping businesses and individuals apply for disaster assistance loans. The deadline to file for assistance from the July storm in Vermont has been extended. WAMC’s North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley spoke with SBA Office of Disaster Recovery and Resilience Public Affairs Specialist Jim Accurso:
We provide help to all forms of businesses. We also help homeowners and renters associated with this declaration in Vermont as a result of the flooding from July 7th to the 17th.
Now I think most people don’t realize that homeowners and renters are included in SBA assistance...
Correct.
...in any kind of disaster. How is it in this disaster they’re included?
This is a presidentially declared disaster. And for the help that we provide to homeowners and renters folks need to first register with FEMA and see what FEMA can provide to them in the form of grants. Then they are referred to us for the loans that we offer, the long-term low interest loans. And those loans are, we’ll help businesses up to $2 million with the structure of the business, inventory, supplies and the like. And then we will also help homeowners and renters for real estate and personal property. Homeowners can get up to $200,000 and renters can get up to $40,000 for the contents of the home. And then we will also help in the form of our Economic Injury Disaster Loans which are working capital loans. There’s different deadlines for those. The deadlines for the business loans, for the homeowners and renters was recently extended for folks to apply until October 12th. And then the economic injury loans folks have until next April 15th to apply.
What types of loans are these?
These are long-term low interest loans and the interest rates now are as low as 4 percent for businesses, 2.375 percent for non-profits and 2.5 percent for homeowners and renters. And what we encourage folks to do is to come in and apply. There is no fee to apply for an SBA loan and there is no obligation to take the loan if it’s awarded. If it is in fact awarded the folks can get a payout, a first payout, of up to $25,000 likely within four to five weeks. But again there’s no obligation to take that if it is awarded you and the initial payment period is deferred for a year, interest free.
One of the things that often comes up following a disaster and we’ve seen it in Vermont, particularly with the agriculture sector, is that they don’t want to take out more loans. Why doesn’t the SBA provide grants?
We never, we weren’t, we were never set up to provide grants. We’ve been around since 1953 so we’re actually celebrating our 70th anniversary. But we are a federal operation where we provide loans to businesses. And then, like I say, on the disaster side we now help with loans to homeowners and renters. There are other government agencies on the state side that may help with grants. And I know there are some in Vermont that do.
Contiguous counties are also included in this. So there are some Massachusetts and New York state counties that are included.
Yes, yes there are. So the homeowners, renters and business owners are eligible in the Vermont counties of Caledonia, Chittenden, Lamoille, Orleans, Orange, Rutland, Washington, Windham and Windsor. And then the economic injury loans are available for those same counties as well as Addison, Bennington, Franklin and Grand Isle; Franklin in Massachusetts, Clinton, Essex and Washington in New York and Cheshire, Grafton and Sullivan in New Hampshire. So those are for the economic injury loans. We call them contiguous counties so if they border those primary counties that I mentioned that’s where they’re eligible for the Economic Injury Disaster Loans. And those are up to $2 million. The deadline to apply for those is not until next April 15th. Those are working capital loans for say a business sees a shortfall tied to the rain event, say they couldn’t get to clients, clients couldn’t get to them and they have a shortfall we encourage them to apply. They might be eligible for a working capital loan of up to $2 million and again the terms can be as long as 30 years.
I want to clarify. If somebody is in a contiguous county and their business was affected by somebody who had flood damage in Vermont, that they could be eligible?
For the economic injury loan.
They wouldn’t necessarily have to have had direct flood damage, but had economic damage because, perhaps, a supplier in Vermont was affected and therefore there was a domino effect and they were affected.
Exactly. Or if they were a supplier on this side and they couldn’t get to the supply to that business in Vermont. You know they had a shortfall. They had to lay people off or they couldn’t get product or whatever. They could be eligible for those economic injury loans.
There was also some storm damage in areas of New York state. In the Adirondacks Hamilton County, particularly in the Loon Lake area. What is the SBA doing in that area of New York?
So that was a separate declaration. So again we come in at the request of the state, okay. So in New York Governor Hochul requested a disaster declaration and one was declared for the flooding around the July 9th and 10th period. And folks in Clinton, Dutchess, Essex, Franklin, Hamilton, Ontario, Orange, Putnam and Rockland private, non-profits can apply for the economic injury disaster loans as well as loans that can help repair or replace destroyed real estate machinery and equipment. Okay. So they have to be a private, non-profit and one that is not of a critical nature. So examples of those could be food kitchens, homeless shelters, museums, libraries, community centers, schools and colleges.
Well Jim Accurso, going back to the Vermont disaster, there’s usually a deadline for applying for SBA loan assistance and in Vermont that deadline has shifted.
Right. There was an extension. So when we come in it’s always a two month period, 60 days, from the incident date. We were initially going to close down the loan application process on September 12th. But at the request of the state, they asked us to extend, so it’s been extended to October 12th. And that’s for FEMA and for us. But what folks need to know too is that even after we pull up stakes the SBA is here and we’re willing to help through our partners and our stakeholders. So we encourage folks to work with the local SBA office, the SBDC’s, Small Business Development Centers that are often tied to universities and the like, and other partners. It’s a new approach. We call it a whole of community approach where we can help folks after the fact. Say if folks need some additional funding they can come back and see if they’re eligible for additional funding you know to tie onto that first loan.
Jim Accurso, we always hear with FEMA, with all of the natural disasters that are going on across the country, concerns about their overall federal funding and will they run out of money? Should Congress give them supplemental funding? What about the SBA? How is the SBA funded for natural disasters and should we worry that you’ve got enough to provide loans to everybody?
They need not worry that we have enough money. The money is there. All of our loans come from the Treasury. And it’s my understanding, of course we’re coming up on the end of the fiscal year, so I think some of this talk may relate to the fact that we’re getting to the end of the fiscal year. But folks can rest assured that neither FEMA or us are going to get to a point where there’s not going to be funds for them.
SBA Office of Disaster Recovery and Resilience Public Affairs Specialist Jim Accurso speaking with WAMC North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley.
