A cabinet-level federal administrator is in western Iowa today to encourage people who’ve seen their homes and livelihoods damaged or demolished by this year’s severe weather to lean on Uncle Sam.
Administrator Isabel Casillas Guzman heads the U.S. Small Business Administration and tells Radio Iowa that the SBA isn’t just devoted to helping small businesses recover.
“The Small Business Administration steps in after disasters to ensure that homeowners and renters, those people who are critical for our small businesses’ success, their customers, their employees, they’re also able to recover from a disaster,” Guzman says. “My team’s been on the ground from the beginning, with FEMA, across the state in the various disaster areas.”
SBA Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman (SBA photo)
Guzman is in the Adair County town of Greenfield, which was hit by an EF-4 tornado in May that killed four people and destroyed 153 homes. It’s been an especially bad year for severe weather in Iowa, with significant damage in multiple counties from storms, flooding, straight-line winds, and a record 122 tornadoes.
“SBA has approved, across the three disaster declarations, over 500 loans of $62 million,” Guzman says, “and that’s to residents as well as businesses, for their property and the business disruptions that they were able to get some recovery for.”
Guzman plans to visit Greenfield businesses as well as the SBA’s Greenfield Disaster Recovery Center which opened earlier this month. She also plans to host a meet-and-greet with homeowners to hear about their recovery needs.
Why haven’t more people in Iowa’s disaster areas signed up for SBA assistance? Guzman says there can be many reasons, ranging from pride to a lack of trust to a lack of knowledge about what’s available.
“Sometimes there are those barriers and challenges,” Guzman says. “We are there to fill gaps in insurance or fill gaps in coverage so that businesses and residents can make whole their recovery from the disaster. We’re here to get on the ground and work through trusted partners as well at centers that are easy to access for the businesses as well as the residents.”
This afternoon, the administrator will hold a roundtable meeting in West Des Moines with federal, state, and local stakeholders, along with business owners and non-profits, to discuss tornado damage recovery efforts. She says the agency’s loans are very affordable.
“These are 30-year terms, so those payments are spread out over quite a long period, and they’re very low cost, as low as 2.68% for homeowners and renters, as well as as low as 4% for businesses and 3.25% for nonprofits,” Guzman says. “We hope to continue to move forward and get as many of those who need help the assistance that they need.”
Before flying back to Washington D.C. later today, Guzman plans to meet with the owners of BLK & Bold in Des Moines, the first black-owned nationally-distributed coffee company, as part of celebrating National Black Business Month.