The International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Atlanta has received $800,000 in federal funding to help refugee and immigrant entrepreneurs reinvigorate their small businesses in the aftermath of pandemic-related disruptions.
The grant is part of a $100 million initiative funded by the American Rescue Plan, President Joe Biden’s trillion-dollar coronavirus relief bill. Spearheaded by the U.S. Small Business Administration, that $100 million initiative aims to speed up the post-pandemic recovery for diverse small business owners nationwide.
In Georgia, the IRC plans to support up to 600 businesses over a two-year span, working with partner organizations that have established trust in immigrant communities: the Latin American Association, the Refugee Women’s Network and the Somali American Community Center. Money from the grant won’t be given to the small businesses directly. Instead, the nonprofits will help businesses recover from the impacts of COVID-19 by providing free-of-charge business counseling, technical assistance, and help applying for government resources.
All three of the IRC’s partner organizations are based in DeKalb County.
Community leaders say that support is needed because many immigrant and refugee small business owners were unable to access the pandemic-era business subsidies that helped keep many of their competitors afloat.
Omar Shekhey, executive director of the Somali American Community Center, said most business owners in his community did not get assistance during the worst of the pandemic “simply because they didn’t speak the language, they didn’t know how to fill up the forms, they didn’t know where to go.”
Bridging that gap will be a priority of the IRC initiative.
“That’s a big piece of this. ... It’s connecting our refugee and immigrant entrepreneurs to existing services that are in the community, to grants that are out there, but that our clients and our members don’t know how to access,” said Jessica Rodrigues from the IRC.
Both in Georgia and across the U.S., immigrants are overrepresented among the ranks of small business owners. In the state, foreign-born Georgians make up roughly 10% of the population, but they own an estimated 31% of all “main street businesses,” according to a report from the Georgia Budget and Policy Initiative, a left-leaning think tank.
Newcomers “can’t find a job because they have the language barrier, because they don’t know the system well. [But] they have to survive. They have to pay their bills. So, the first option that they have is go and start a business,” said Mónica Cucalón, managing director of economic empowerment at the Latin American Association.
The recipients of the $800,000 grant say supporting immigrant business owners will make them more likely to provide employment to people in the community, and generate more tax revenue for the state.
“It’s a win-win, no matter how you look at it, from a humanitarian perspective … or an economics perspective,” said Justin Howell, the IRC’s executive director. “The pandemic teaches us that we are all connected. Right? And so the economic success of any family in our community impacts all of us.”
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