Baker administration hands out $67m to support battling small firms

The Baker administration rolled out yet another $67 million in grants on Thursday to almost 1,400 compact organizations that are battling because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fifty percent of the successful companies in this round are owned by folks of colour, and almost 50 % are owned by women. Restaurants and bars, beauty and own products and services, wellbeing treatment, and retail are between the sectors that are receiving the most income in this spherical. Grants ranged noticeably in size, up to $75,000 apiece.

It is the second spherical of funding introduced considering the fact that Governor Charlie Baker introduced his tiny-company aid work in October and seeded it with nearly $51 million. And it is the initially spherical of grants to be introduced due to the fact Baker unveiled programs very last 7 days to add a further $668 million to the pot, mainly created possible by federal coronavirus reduction resources accredited by Congress in March — and language in the new federal stimulus invoice that gives him another 12 months to use these resources.

With the $67 million awarded on Thursday, that usually means there is about $600 million remaining to be doled out in the coming months.

The Baker administration, working by way of the quasi-community Massachusetts Growth Money Corp., has been distributing this income underneath 3 programs. The first two prioritized smaller businesses owned by men and women of shade, women, and veterans, largely, though the new iteration will prioritize particular industries hit tricky by the pandemic. They involve dining places, shops, indoor amusement venues, gyms, hair salons, and function-aid corporations these types of as photographers and caterers.

“The goal below is to test to aid as numerous of them as we can to … get them via this genuinely rocky time period,” Baker mentioned in an job interview. “They dwell on a particular touch and a bodily existence, which COVID does every thing it maybe can to demolish.”

Baker hopes the grants can support these tiny companies endure the wintertime, and survive right until vaccines are commonly readily available and COVID-19 circumstance counts are low more than enough that point out officials can loosen up some company constraints that ended up place in spot to slow the spread of the virus.

Mass. Growth Funds started accepting apps on Thursday for the new program, and will continue to do so for two months. The grants go up to $75,000, and are capped at 3 months of charges.

The Massachusetts Restaurant Association had approached the Baker administration to propose a short-term maximize in condition and area meals taxes, to build a new revenue stream that the point out could use to problem bonds and increase $1 billion or more for grants to cafe proprietors.

But Baker reported he seen the Mass. Advancement Money energy as a more quickly and less challenging way to get funds to the dining establishments, to assist them bridge the hole right until the spring, when out of doors eating is envisioned to resume once again in lots of locations.

Much more than 10,000 modest enterprises used for the to start with spherical of funding. Past week, the Baker administration awarded $49 million to 1,158 of people small organizations, or about a single out of 10 applicants. This next round, which will support 1,366 added smaller businesses, is accommodating lots of of all those prior requests, and much more revenue will be awarded in the subsequent several weeks to preceding applicants. Applications for the Mass. Growth Money funds can be observed on the net at empoweringsmallbusiness.org.

Jon Chesto can be arrived at at [email protected]. Stick to him on Twitter @jonchesto.