Fri, 01/15/2021 - 5:39pm admin
Illinois officials on Friday, Jan. 8, announced more than $275 million in nearly 9,000 emergency assistance grants have been made to small businesses in over 600 cities and towns statewide through the Business Interruption Grants, BIG, program.
The funding was announced by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, DCEO, and Gov. JB Pritzker.
Small businesses in Union County are among those receiving emergency assistance grant funds.
Those receiving grants in Union County included Sinisi’s on Main in Anna, the Shawnee Hills Arts Council in Anna, The Kitchen on Lafayette in Anna, Abbey Ridge LLC (Downtown Abbey) in Cobden, Lincoln Heritage Winery (which is located between Anna and Cobden) and Feather Vines LLC (Feather Hills Vineyard & Winery) in Makanda/Union County.
Oftentimes it’s a lot less visible.
Based on the West Side of Chicago, Accion Serving Illinois and Indiana is a revolving loan fund for small businesses. It primarily makes microloans defined as small business loans of $50,000 or less to borrowers who otherwise may only have access to predatory lenders. Its average loan size is $8,000. Nearly 40 percent of its clients are Black, more than 20 percent are Latino, and three-quarters are low-to-moderate income.
Around the fifteenth of every month, the team at Accion compiles their monthly financial report, and when it does it also looks at its forecast for the next three months of loan demand. If they don’t have enough liquid cash to cover that, they might have to to borrow more a painstaking process even for them, and it can take a month or longer. They might already be at their borrowing limit, which is based on the overall size of the fund. Another option is to sell some loans out of their portfolio, the way housing lend