Disaster recovery resources keep our workforce afloat

Since Hurricane Irma barreled through the Florida Keys, came ashore in Southwest Florida and drenched most of the state, businesses and communities across Florida have faced some serious challenges.

Many businesses went days without electricity, others had storm damage and some were completely destroyed. Communities near Florida’s shorelines suffered devastating winds and floods and are still grappling with recovery efforts.

At the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, we are working with businesses and communities across the state to provide expert guidance, short-term assistance and longterm planning to help every community that was impacted by the storm.

We know that the first step to getting our communities back on their feet is getting our businesses back on their feet.

One of the programs we have to help businesses is the Small Business Emergency Bridge Loan. This program, administered in partnership with the Florida Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Network, provides short-term, interest-free loans to businesses that suffered economic or physical damage from the hurricane.

The program bridges the gap between the time a major catastrophe hits and when a business has secured longer-term recovery resources, such as payments on insurance claims or federal disaster assistance.

Continuing to support Florida’s workforce is also critical. With our partners at CareerSource Florida and the 24 local workforce development boards across the state, we are offering the National Dislocated Worker Grant program to provide jobs to jobseekers while helping communities with clean-up and recovery activities.

These jobs provide food, clothing, shelter and other humanitarian assistance or involve demolition, cleaning, repair, renovation and reconstruction of damaged structures and facilities.

This grant program ensures that individuals who lost jobs because of storm damage are able to continue working, while helping their own communities recover.

As individuals, businesses and communities move past the short-term emergency recovery needs, DEO is already transitioning our focus to planning for long-term community recovery.

We are working with leadership in the Florida Keys and many other areas of the state to assess and gather resources for the long-term recovery that is already taking place.

And we are working with our partners in other state agencies and at the federal level to ensure that we are bringing all of our combined resources to the table to help Floridians recover from Hurricane Irma.

We know that only with collaboration between the privatesector business community and state and local governments will our communities recover from this disaster stronger than before.

[The] grant program ensures that individuals who lost jobs because of storm damage are able to continue working, while helping their own communities recover.