Texas program could offer assistance to small businesses affected by disaster
HOUSTON - Among all the homes still without power are hundreds, maybe thousands, of businesses. Closed-doors are expensive trouble for any business, but particularly so for small businesses that can have tighter margins.
There's a chance Texas lawmakers can help, when they return to Austin for the next session.
SUGGESTED: FEMA Hurricane Beryl individual assistance expanded to 15 Houston area counties
In Houston's Oak Forest neighborhood, Matt Wurth doesn't have a lot of good news. Would-be burglars tried to break into his I-Cycle bicycle shop the first night after Hurricane Beryl moved through Houston, when the power was out.
Now, he keeps a portable generator fueled for some lights and fans while he sleeps at the shop to keep a watchful eye. Until power is restored, the business is closed, and his half-dozen employees are not earning a paycheck.
"With no electricity, we're almost shut down, out of business," says Wurth. "Nobody's going to come shopping for a bicycle in the dark, when it's a hundred degrees."
Janice Jucker can appreciate the problem, "When you're hit, disaster, after disaster, after disaster, it eats up any cash reserves you have."
Three Brothers Bakery, which she runs with her husband, has been repeatedly hit by floods, storms, freezes and the pandemic. She's become a vocal advocate for small business assistance. In 2021, Texas lawmakers passed the framework for a small business disaster recovery loan program, called SB 678. This next session, she hopes to get it funded to make so-called 'bridge-loans' available for affected businesses.
"The purpose of the bridge-loan would be to loan up to $50,000, and you use it to pay your people, so you could reopen," says Jucker. "Because, if you don't have people, you can't reopen."
Back at I-Cycle, with his dog adding a layer of protection and company, Matt Wurth can see the potential benefit of a safety net when disaster strikes.
"Right now, we're OK," he says, "But if this happened a couple more times, we would be seriously hurting."
The stakes are high. A FEMA study shows 40% of businesses that close during a disaster never reopen. An additional 29% don't survive beyond two years. The Texas disaster-recovery loan program is designed after a similar one in Florida. Janice Jucker says she's got the names of everyone who voted for the Texas-version, and she will lean on each of them to find the money to pay for it.