In this post we share the range and some metrics of the activities that OED, functioning as part of the City’s Emergency Operations Center, has dedicated resources and staff time to helping the city’s businesses deal with the drastic impact of the pandemic. Our first insight was that the larger firms and the tech sector were going to be able to maintain operations through allowing employees to mostly work from home. This was not true of small businesses that were not deemed “essential” – our restaurants, small shops, bars, gyms, personal care salons, etc. They were faced with immediate and eventually intermittent closure and serious responsibilities for maintaining social distancing, occupancy limits, etc. This sector became the focus of our emergency and recovery activities.

It’s important to note that although residents of several San Jose zip codes were disproportionately vulnerable to COVID-19 infection, illness and mortality, businesses across the city were equally impacted by State and County business restriction and closure orders.  Accordingly, City of San José’s emergency response and recovery operations have been made available to all small businesses throughout the city,

 EAST SAN JOSÉ FOCUS

The City of San José had been focusing significant resources and business support activities in East San José prior to the pandemic, as part of the first-ever city-directed pilot to address small business displacement. The initiative included:

• Identifying and creating collaborations with community-based business support organizations such as Start Small Think Big
• Map- and data-based analysis of areas vulnerable to potential development disruption
• Actively supporting the new Latino Business Foundation and collaborating with the E. Santa Clara and Alum Rock Business Association to establish a new property owner-led business improvement district, which will open later in 2021. At Quetzal Gardens, the new neighborhood business resource center is being led by the Latino Business Foundation in partnership with Somos Mayfair and the Excite Credit Union, in the heart of the Alum Rock area.

 In late 2020 the City’s OED collaborated with the Latino Business Foundation to design and implement the first ever equity-driven small business survey. More than 200 businesses completed the survey providing invaluable information on the impact of COVID and the issues facing small businesses as they plan for recovery. The survey is currently being analyzed.

GRANTS:

Beginning in October 2020 the City provided 296 small businesses with a total of $3.76 million in San José Small Business Rent Relief grants funded by federal Coronavirus Relief Funds (CRF).  Businesses had applied for amounts up to $15,000:

• 92% awarded to business owners of color
• 100% distributed to low- or moderate-income applicants
• 52% awarded to businesses located in targeted zip codes most heavily impacted by COVID-19 (on San José‘s East Side)
• 100% distributed to businesses with 10 or fewer employees

Between March and December 2020, the City of San José also offered Silicon Valley Strong Small Business Grants of $10,000 funded through corporate donations, and San José Community Development Block Grant-funded (CDBG) Microenterprise Grants of $15,000 using the City’s redirected federal FY 2019-20 CDBG funds.

In total, these three grant programs disbursed $6.09 million in grants to support 499 San José small businesses owned by low- or moderate-income individuals, primarily from communities of color located within San José.

BUSINESS SUPPORT:

OED pivoted its Business Outreach and Communications Programs to focus on small business support, setting up a multi-lingual phone in hotline (408 535-8181) and dedicated email box (covid19sjbusiness@sanjoseca.gov), targeted outreach to specific businesses and commercial areas, email blasts to 40K businesses, and weekly webinars, with an emphasis on sharing timely information on health orders, loan and grant programs, business resources, etc., most also in Spanish, Vietnamese and Chinese/Mandarin.

Examples:

• Promotion of federal and state loans/grants (including 1:1 technical support). More than 13,000 Paycheck Protection Program loans in 2020 were awarded in San José, 70% to small businesses. Total value estimated at $1.1 billion
• Supported and promoted 6 rounds of the CA Business Relief Grant program (including 1:1 technical support) – over 2,000 small business estimated to benefit in San José
• Rapid introduction of SJ Al Fresco initiative to support outdoor business operations
• More than 2,000 webinar attendees since 1/1/2021, ~150 per weekly session
• Two or three per week email blasts to more than 40,000 San Jose businesses with approximate open rate 34%, click rate 5% - updates on health orders, webinar information, loan and grant program announcements
• Direct outreach to 100s of individual businesses through email, phone hotline and in-person outreach
• Multi-lingual capacity added to all communications channels for critical info
• Regular blog posts on issues, programs, developments, news regarding recovery as well as general economic development updates
• Completed an equity-driven assessment of small business needs impacted by COVID with 200+ responses