Pandemic is the second hard knock on this Fresno business community, leaders say
As federal, state and local governments roll out programs to help businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic, some of Fresno’s Southeast Asian leaders fear that for their community, help will be too little too late.
Blong Xiong, a former Fresno City Councilmember who now leads the Fresno Asian Business Institute & Resource Center, said Southeast Asian business owners and farmers face extra challenges applying for loans and funding. Many government agencies don’t employ staffers who speak Hmong, and by the time businesses get help submitting the application, the money will be gone, he said.
Plus, many of the small Southeast Asian-run businesses don’t have “networking capital” with lending institutions the same way bigger businesses do, he said.
“So you have multiple barriers that puts them in the back of the line, if they manage to get into the line at all,” Xiong said. “You continue to put these small businesses who are the least apt to handle this pandemic in an even worse situation.”
The city of Fresno’s population is over 13% Asian, according to Census Bureau data.
For the agencies that are offering aid, many were flooded with applications. Nationally, the Small Business Administration has processed 14 years of loans in 14 days, said Dawn Golik, the district director for the Fresno district office.
Fresno’s SBA staff have been answering about 250-300 calls and emails a day from small businesses in the 15 counties they serve, she said. Staff include fluent Korean and Spanish speakers, and the SBA’s website can be translated into over 100 languages, including Hmong.
The city of Fresno’s Save Our Small Businesses program received over 2,600 applications in less than a week. City officials identified $750,000 to loan businesses. The city also has translated all of its coronavirus website content into Spanish, Hmong and Punjabi.
Local farmer, business owner struggle
After the coronavirus pandemic hit, Fresno County farmer Zia Thea Xiong let six or seven acres of sugar snap peas die because he had no buyer for them.
He typically sells his crops to wholesalers. But now, he’s seriously reconsidering planting his next round of crops because he’s unsure he will be able to sell them.
“If this was a normal farming season, he wouldn’t have this concern. There’s always been buyers or destinations where he can get his product to,” said Blong Xiong, who interpreted for Zia Thea Xiong in an interview with The Fresno Bee. “This is going to affect his life here in his country – his bills, his family, how he’s going to survive in this country. Does this mean his family will have to go back and ask for government support and he can no longer be self-sustainable?”
The 69-year-old refugee who immigrated from Laos in the late 1980s leases 38 acres of land southeast of Fresno where he farms a variety of crops, including Thai chilis, green mustard, squash, melons and gai lan, or Chinese broccoli.
“He’s not sure what direction to go if there’s no help to get him through this situation,” Blong Xiong said.
Xiong, the farmer, wasn’t aware of any assistance available to him until he was contacted by ABIRC. Blong Xiong’s agency helped Zia Thea Xiong apply for a few grants, but they’re still unsure how much money he’ll receive – if any.
But applying for the SBA’s programs hasn’t been easy even for modern and tech-savvy business owners.
Bobby Bliatout runs federally funded health clinics in Fresno and Sacramento. He also ran as a Democratic candidate for Congress against Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare.
Fewer patients have been coming into the clinics, and the clinics had to pay for start-up costs to start using telemedicine. Those two factors combined amounted to a 40% loss for the business, Bliatout said.
He said he struggled to apply for the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program: The application was difficult to navigate and it was hard to judge the outcome.
“I find myself to know more than the average person,” he said. “Even for those who did know how to apply, it’s pretty much impossible for them to get this kind of assistance because there wasn’t enough training or notification for folks to know how to take advantage of it.”
Both Bliatout and Blong Xiong called on the region’s elected leaders to step up and find ways to make sure help is reaching undeserved communities.
“This is the time when we need the leadership of elected officials to push for these opportunities for the communities of Fresno,” Bliatout said. “I really do feel this COVID-19 has exposed a lot of inequalities in the system.”
Outreach
Neither the local SBA office nor the city of Fresno has local data for the number of Southeast Asian business owners who have applied for loans.
Golik, with Fresno’s SBA office, said SBA collaborates with a network of agencies that serve non-English-speaking businesses. Her office is thankful for regional partners that invited SBA to participate in webinars, town hall meetings and other informational distribution to members and audiences in other languages.
SBA has a number of partners to assist businesses in submitting loan applications and prepare financial statements for free. Some partners do offer bilingual assistance. Businesses that didn’t submit applications for the first round of funding can begin preparing their applications for future allocations. For help or questions, contact the SBA’s Fresno District Office via email at fresno@sba.gov or phone 559-487-5791.
City leaders have partnered with The Fresno Center and its leader, Pao Yang, to get the word out about its program to help small businesses, said Mark Standriff, the city’s spokesman. The recipients of those loans are scheduled to be announced at the end of the week.
The city also has worked with media outlets to spread the word, including outlets in Spanish, Hmong and Punjabi. The city also has used social media platforms and its FresGo mobile app to reach over 100,000 users.
Yang spoke with at least a dozen Southeast Asian businessmen who were interested in the city’s loan program, Standriff said. Plus, Yang helped farmers with no computer access connect to state and federal programs.
Blong Xiong said it’s unfair for agencies to rely on community groups for this work since they’re already stretched thin and equally affected by the pandemic. He hopes future funding will be earmarked specifically for minority communities.
“If we’re not allocating dollars specifically for disadvantaged communities, the chances of us getting it are very slim,” he said.