Gene: Okay. So it’s deferred, but let’s switch over to grants now, if that’s okay. So we talked about the Economic Injury Disaster Loan, but it also comes with a grant part of it to it as well. Can you explain that to us, to our listeners, to our viewers?

Julio: Sure. What happened back in endments into the COVID relief program, it also included money to focus in inner city or small and minority-owned businesses that were really being impacted by COVID or that did not have an opportunity to apply in previous funding. And so what happened was that funding was provided through Congress to allow for certain businesses. Doesn’t have to be minority, it doesn’t have to… It could be any business that’s located within a low income sector that is mapped at disaster. So if you go into and search for the mapping tool, you could easily put your address into the mapping tool. And if your address is within that zone, then you can qualify for up to $10,000 of economic injury grant, they refer to it as a targeted advance.

And then they’ve been issuing emails or advice notices to these borrowers that they’re in these markets please apply for the targeted loan because they have to request for it

But there’s a caveat to it. Not only do you have to be located within that mapping area, but you also have to demonstrate a 35% . And it’s not the whole year. It’s only just a couple of weeks. If I’m correct, it’s eight weeks, you have to demonstrate that within that year to year comparison, you had a 35% as the barometer 2019 should have been your strongest year. 2020 most businesses lost 20, 25, 50, some even might have been able to regain 10% of their revenue. So if you’re in a low income community, you can demonstrate a 35% decrease between one year and the other, you are then entitled to the $10,000 grant. Here’s another caveat. If you can provide that you lost more than 55% within the map that you’re located in the mapping area, then you can also get an additional $5,000 for a total $15,000.

Gene: That is amazing. I did a little research on some numbers, so I don’t expect you to know this off the top of your head, but there was about 3.8 billion dollars of grants that have been issued of the 30 billion that’s been approved for this program. So it’s a https://www.paydayloansohio.net/cities/harrison/ little bit more than 10% of the money has been used, which means 90% is still there, which is incredible. Why do you think that’s the case? I mean, this is like free money. Most businesses suffer that . Why aren’t more businesses applying for these grants?

Julio: Plus that’s a deferment of anywhere from 24 months to 18 months, depending on when you took the EIDL loan

Julio: It’s something that I ask. I do a lot of webinars and I try to let the audience know that these grants are available. It’s not for me to hide it. This is money that has been appropriated, allocated and available. Now here’s the interesting thing. So what SBA has been doing is they have been soliciting by mailing out emails to all of the existing EIDL applicants or that they have an EIDL loan if they’re in that sector. Because SBA has been able to map nationally all of the areas that have been targeted as low income through the census. It just does not be issued to them automatically.