Economic Relief for Businesses Impacted by COVID-19
We recognize that these are challenging times for entrepreneurs. Therefore, We’ve gathered information to assist with the economic impact COVID-19 may be having on your businesses. Please see the below information.
City of Chicago Small Business Resiliency Fund
$100 million in seed funding from the City of Chicago and philanthropic institutions and corporations created the Chicago Small Business Resiliency Fund. This Fund will provide neighborhood businesses impacted by this COVID-19 health crisis with emergency cash flow, low-interest loans with up to a 5-year maturity.
Eligible businesses must have experienced more than a 25% revenue decrease due to the impact of COVID-19 and have fewer than 50 employees and gross revenues less than $3 million. The City of Chicago will be partnering with its CDFI and micro-lending partners beginning on March 31st, 2020 to accept applications from local businesses.
Small businesses can apply to the loan program here.
For more information, please see the City’s March 23 update.
Illinois Hospitality Emergency Grant Program (Application due April 1)
To help hospitality businesses, DCEO is launching the Hospitality Emergency Grant Program with $14 million drawn from funds originally budgeted for job training, tourism promotion, and other purposes. Grant funds are available to support working capital (like payroll and rent) as well as job training, retraining, and technology to support shifts in operations (like increased pick-up and delivery).
- Bars and restaurants that generated between $500,000 and $1 million in revenues in 2019 are eligible for up to a $25,000 grant, and bars and restaurants that generated less than $500,000 in revenues in 2019 are eligible for up to a $10,000 grant.
- Hotels that generated less than $8 million in revenues in 2019 are eligible for up to a $50,000 grant.
- Click here to apply.
Federal SBA Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program to Support Borrowers Across Our Region
The Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program provides low interest loans of up to $2 million to small businesses and private non-profits suffering substantial economic injury as a result of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
The Women’s Business Development Center (WBDC) has created a disaster loan readiness checklist and a comprehensive applicant guide (Spanish translations to follow) that can be accessed at the links below:
- WBDC Readiness Checklist for SBA Economic Injury Disaster Loans
- WBDC Applicant Guide for SBA Economic Injury Disaster Loans
Due to the unprecedented number of small businesses applying for Economic Injury Disaster Loans, the Disaster Loan Application Portal is down and paper applications for the loan are now required by the SBA.
Please visit https://disasterloan.sba.gov/apply-for-disaster-loan/index.html to learn more.
