Antioch works to help small businesses
Chamber GoFundMe, city grants and more are on the table
ANTIOCH >> As in many communities, small businesses in Antioch have been slammed by the pandemic, but the city is not sitting still waiting for a cure.
Recognizing many of its small businesses were hurting, the Antioch Chamber of Commerce recently conducted a survey to see where things stood, and the results are grim. Nearly 75% of those responding, who made up roughly a third of the city’s small businesses, said their gross sales “were drastically down” or that they had closed because of the impact of the pandemic and health orders.
Only 5% said there had been no change, and another 5% indicated sales were up.
When asked what would be most helpful, 82.5% said financial assistance, and 42.5% said reduced restrictions, 13.7% indicated legal help and 7.5% said educational help.
Antioch Chamber CEO Sean Wright said in an interview that previous programs such as the state’s Paycheck Protection Program and city grants to small businesses from federal COVID-19 relief monies had helped, but they went only so far.
A second round of the Payment Protection Program that recently launched will assist businesses that still are operating, but the city’s federal COVID-19 relief funds have been depleted at this point, he said.
“For those businesses that have been forced to shut down, giving them two months of payroll, how does that help your business?” Wright said. “You helped the employee for two months, but as far as your
business, it didn’t do anything to help the business.”
The city had offered grants of up to $5,000 each, which helped some 60 small businesses before the federal funds ran out, the former mayor said. Another state grant relief program, whose application period ended last week, offered up to $15,000 each for qualifying small businesses.
“But if you add up all that money (it’s not enough) … it just depends on your payroll. For some businesses, this is really helping them, because their revenue is down but it’s not gone. The grant money is helping them to stay afloat and keep going, which is great,” Wright said.
But for those that have had to shut down, it won’t be enough, Wright said, adding that the chamber will begin a GoFundMe account next week to help the struggling small businesses.
“If you have no revenue coming in, the money’s gone quick,” he said.
Antioch also hopes to find new ways to help the businesses, according to newly elected Mayor Lamar Thorpe, who said an additional 40 businesses qualified for assistance but got none when the city ran out of its COVID-19 federal relief funds recently.
Thorpe said he will be
asking the council next month to approve funding $95,000 in grants for those businesses that qualified but were not helped by the previous federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act program. The $95,000 likely would be funneled through a nonprofit, he added.
“We are starting from scratch because everything we’ve done up to this point came from the CARES Act, and not from the city itself, so this is what I inherited in the mayor’s office,” he said. “There was no clear direction or priority on how to help small businesses as to how it relates to COVID-19.”
Thorpe said he hoped Antioch in the future “would have a better opportunity to engage small businesses and bring discussions to council through work sessions, so we can start prioritizing how to deal with the impacts of COVID-19.
“And again, it’s not just regulated to small businesses,” he added. “There’s going to be a huge challenge with evictions and rental assistance and whatnot from COVID. … Those impacts are coming.”
More small business resources can be found at AntiochonTheMove.com.