A Fighting Chance
Introducing A Robust Small Business Support Package
How San Francisco Can Give Our Small Businesses A Fighting Chance Right Now.
March 25, 2020 - San Francisco must move quickly to roll out a robust package of support for our Small Business Community during the COVID-19 crisis. Each day is critical and the choices we make now will directly impact the likelihood of many of our favorite businesses being able to open again in the future.
Below are the steps I would take as your next District 3 Supervisor to support businesses in our neighborhoods and across our City. These priorities come from countless conversations with small business owners. They will evolve as the crisis changes, and I welcome your feedback to make them a better representation of our current needs.
Immediately Assign An Advocate to Every Small Business
No matter how well-intended The City’s relief and recovery programs are, their real impact will depend on how many businesses are able to access them. Currently, the model is one in which the burden is on businesses to reach out to lobby for services. This favors larger, sophisticated businesses and hurts small, immigrant, or monolingual operators. To shift to a proactive model where the City works on behalf of small businesses, we must move to create a team of Small Business Advocates with a prioritized list of small businesses that will be assigned an Advocate within 30 days.
Offer Grants Up to $20,000
The City’s current offering, The Small Business Resiliency Fund, is only available to micro-businesses with 1-5 employees and has been described “at capacity”. We need to do more quickly.
The City must immediately fix this to also offer funds to small businesses with 5-50 employees. The Fund must also be expanded to offer up to $20,000 per business, total funding must be expanded to $10 million, and the first grants need to be released no later than March 31st. The many costs of allowing precious local businesses to die is far greater than the price of the grants.
Properly Protect our Workers
Our corner stores and to-go restaurants are seeing tremendous waves of traffic and their workers are operating under significant stress. We must put every precaution in place so that these are safe environments for both residents accessing essential services and the workers. This means that The City should equip each small essential business with items such as protective gloves and hand sanitizer dispensers. We also need to consider dispatching Public Health officials to monitor operations and crowds to keep all safe.
Expand The Commercial Eviction Moratorium to 60 Days
The Mayor acted swiftly and correctly to instate a 30-day moratorium on evictions of small and medium businesses. But, that won’t be enough. The state’s Executive Order allows municipalities to expand the moratorium up to 60 days. San Francisco should immediately extend the period to 60 days. This will allow our small business owners to have more flexibility as they plan their next steps.
Allow Partner Businesses
While a few businesses are shifting to new operating models and seeing some encouraging signs, most are not able to change their operations overnight. To help create more opportunities, we should legalize “Partner Businesses” in which two separate businesses operate in one setting. For example, this would allow a coffee shop to offer to-go orders from a nearby bakery. This offers more flexibility and shared costs for essential businesses in this moment.
Make Fee and Tax Deferrals Automatic
State and city agencies are acting correctly in allowing for extensions of license fees and tax filings. However, the majority of adjustments are only available if business owners explicitly file to request them. This creates mountains of additional paperwork for our merchants and means that less connected operators may not have the same levels of access. We need to make all fees and tax deferrals automatic, rather than operating on a petition based system.
Offer 0% Interest Loans
Over 13,000 supporters have signed a petition asking for this, and we should listen by opening up 0% interest loans for small businesses. Loans do have their own set of risks, but they can be an important part of the support package. There should be no collateral required and repayment terms must be flexible. Other cities are already acting - New York City is offering $75,000 loans to businesses.
Add Your Support
Spread The Word
Share The Fighting Chance Plan with your neighborhood businesses, and with your elected officials. Make sure they understand how critical the days ahead are and that we cannot afford to be safe with the package that we assemble to support small businesses. Add your name and e-mail below to stay updated.
Do Your Part - Buy Now, Use Later
We’ve started a directory of neighborhood businesses that are offering online gift cards.
This lets you give them a payment now, and have something to look forward to when they reopen. Find your favorite and support them with a gift card purchase.