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City of Toledo
Providing Help for Microbusinesses
By Asia Nail
Sojourner’s Truth Reporter
One way or another, COVID-19 has likely affected your business — for
better or worse.
This week the City of Toledo is quickly providing direct assistance and
access to state and national resources on one main
objective: saving microbusinesses.
Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz, during a virtual news conference
accompanied by members of Toledo City Council last Thursday,
announced the formation of a new emergency resource created
to assist the smallest and most vulnerable businesses within
Toledo. The
initiative, titled the Emergency Microenterprise Recovery
Grant (EMRG)
Program, will provide up to $5,000 grants to qualifying
local businesses with five or fewer employees.
Microenterprises contribute greatly to the vitality of our
neighborhoods, support families, create jobs and are
essential to the economic health of the City of Toledo.
“While they are small in size, they have an outsized
importance to our economy,” said
Kapszukiewicz.
For those businesses unable to qualify for the Small Business CARES Act,
this relief is right on time.
EMRG is specifically designed to assist for-profit microenterprises in
maintaining or restarting their operations, by providing up
to $5,000 for eligible operating expenses incurred between
March 1 and June 30. The
program is funded with $1 million of the $4.4 million
COVID-19 CARES Act Community Development Block Grant Funds
and awards are subject to federal requirements.
Councilman Tyrone Riley, vice chairman of City Council’s Neighborhoods
Committee thanked both the mayor and fellow members of
Council explaining, “Without this relief many small
businesses simply will not make it. They would not reopen
their doors and that would be tragic. For these businesses,
$5,000 will go a long way in helping their doors stay open.”
Access to capital is a critical element of driving small business and
its economic growth in urban markets. With this in mind,
there is a relatively tight window for applications to be
accepted, so owners are urged not to delay. The grant
application period begins Monday, May 11, and closes at
midnight, Sunday, May 24.
Sandy Spang, Toledo’s Small Business Services Commissioner, shared her
optimism for owners explaining, “So many of the pieces in
this program came out of conversations with small businesses
expressing the struggle they are having with the effects of
Covid-19. I’m so grateful we were able to put together a
program that can support them as they use the same
creativity and tenacity that they used to build their
businesses and help them to emerge.”
Truthfully, there is no individual city or state that has the resources
to fully address the economic crisis we’re facing. Yet these
provisions are designed to ensure that businesses emerge,
stay afloat and that, once coronavirus subsides, our city
will be able to quickly get its economy back up and running.
Yvonne Harper, District 4 City Councilwoman, shared her excitement
stating, “I know a lot of small businesses this will
positively affect. More importantly, I am proud that it will
be very simple for those businesses to follow the guidelines
of this opportunity and apply.”
Applicants must meet at least one of the U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development’s eligibility requirements:
owns a business located in a low-to-moderate income census
tract or business owner’s household income does not exceed
80 percent of HUD area median income. This is great news
for local black-owned businesses who account for more than a
third of businesses located in these areas.
Councilman Gary Johnson, vice chairman of Economic Development, said: “I
really do feel our city is only as strong as its weakest
link. If we are out helping micro businesses EMERG it only
makes Toledo stronger!”
Johnson understands from his personal experience as a local business
owner added: “I started exactly the way many micro
businesses do, with one person inside the office and two of
us out in the field working to get our business going. I can
see a lot of these micro businesses emerging to larger
businesses and being an intricate part of Toledo’s tax
base.”
Throughout the U.S there is mounting evidence that the
coronavirus pandemic
disproportionately
affects African Americans, both economically and physically.
Rosalyn Clemens, Housing Commissioner for the City of Toledo explained,
“These are hard times for our city. This program shows that
the administration and the council can rise to the occasion
and quickly come up with an initiative that helps our most
vulnerable businesses.” Most notably she also stated, “We
will be bringing the COVID-19 legislation before the Mayor
by May 19th to review all of the other proposed
initiatives that we will be hoping to use the 4.4
million of COVID funding that the city has been awarded. Our
goal is the passage of the legislation by May 26th so we can
then get it to HUD for quick approval.”
The coronavirus is showing us all how interconnected we all
are, as the contagion is infecting people across race,
class, gender, and age.
Black businesses
have historically struggled to obtain capitalization
resources far before this national crisis, making them more
vulnerable to inevitable shocks to the market.
Councilman Rob Ludeman, chairman of the Economic Development Committee,
reminded: “Drastic times call for drastic measures and this
is the perfect example of drastic times. This is an integral
program to get things jump started.”
The political leaders emphasized they will continue to address these
systematic failures with programs like EMERG.
If long term recovery is a priority, they said, spending bills must
continue to address the needs that still exist. If area
residents are all in this together, then various local
elected officials believe they must address the legislations
that have kept black owned and microenterprises behind the
eight-ball even before the emergence of coronavirus.
A special thank you, they noted, to Fifth Third Bank, which was
instrumental in creating the grant program by donating
banking services and disbursing funds to grantees.
EMRG is a one-time program that will terminate once the
grant funds are disbursed. Apply at
https://toledo.oh.gov/emrgrant
Please share this information with business owners who may
qualify. Contact the Department of Economic Development at
emrg@toledo.oh.gov
or 419-245-1614 with any questions.
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