Businesses continue to struggle for coronavirus aid

In mid-March, Javier Mareno, owner of J&M Tile, Granite, & Marble, of Woodbridge, applied for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) with the hope of receiving financial support from the Federal Government for his small, job-creating business, which had to temporarily close in March due to the coronavirus.

More than two months later, Mareno’s request was denied due to credit problems. 

“We just now heard back from the EIDL program. We were not accepted due to credit issues. This was the first time they contacted us, after one month and two weeks of waiting for a status update,” Moreno said. 

EIDL loans grant accepted applicants a non-repayable loan advance of up to $10,000, which is designed to “provide economic relief to businesses that are currently experiencing a temporary loss of revenue” according to the Small Business Administration.

Moreno’s business, according to his estimates, has lost upward of $150,000 in revenue.

Currently, due to new congressional action, only agricultural businesses can apply for these loans, but Moreno, who applied when non-agricultural businesses could receive these loans, plans to appeal his business’ rejection. 

“We are concerned that our appeal will be declined, if it is even seen. We noticed that a good portion of the first round of the EIDL and PPP loans went to large public companies; this was frustrating to us, as we waited in the dark for a long time,” said Moreno.

While Moreno did not receive an EIDL loan, he did receive a $10,000 Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan. The loan is designed to ‘provide a direct incentive for small businesses to keep their workers on the payroll,’ according to the Small Business Administration. The loan, while it will allow him to keep his 17 employees on the payroll, does not aid Moreno in mitigating his business’ revenue loss. 

“We were accepted for the PPP – which we are extremely grateful for. We will be able to pay our workers for a period of time during this pandemic,” Moreno said. 

This crisis is not the first time Moreno has faced financial hardships. In fact, he came to the U.S. to escape them. 

In the late 1990s, his home country of Bolivia was facing economic unrest and mass unemployment. The country’s trade was deteriorating, and it had an abundance of multilateral debt. This led Moreno to lose his former job as an accountant, and to move to Miami in 2001, unwillingly leaving his wife and daughters behind in Bolivia due to financial constraint. 

He moved to Northern Virginia in 2003 to make more money for his family still in Bolivia, and he discovered a large Bolivian community, as well as a job, at JUD Tile Corp. That job and the tile expertise he learned from his construction career in Miami gave him the skills and the opportunity he needed to found J&M Tile, Granite, & Marble in 2005. 

Only two years after the business was founded, Moreno found himself in yet another financial crisis: the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009. 

The business managed to survive and went through a reinvention. Its main clientele shifted from the commercial sector to residential work in Prince William County.

With the coronavirus pandemic, the business has gone through yet another reinvention, but this time for the safety of its staff and customers. 

“We have taken it into our own hands to assure the complete safety of our clients. All of our employees wear masks constantly, regularly use WHO and CDC approved disinfectants on the materials they use, and are health and temperature checked before arriving on the work site,” said Moreno. 

While Moreno’s business and story are a unique picture of the ideals of hard work and perseverance that it takes to achieve the ‘American dream,’ his unfortunate circumstances due to the new coronavirus are not uncommon. A multitude of local businesses, such as Brother’s Pizza, Golden House, and Frosty Moose, have faced similar struggles, whether that be temporarily closing or limiting business hours. 

Not all small businesses, however, are facing the same hardships.

Fahrenheit, a Fredericksburg steakhouse founded five years ago, received both the PPP and an EIDL loan with ease. Cole Berlin, who founded the restaurant along with his wife, found the loan process to be ‘quite easy.’ The restaurant received both loans a few weeks after applying, allowing them to keep their full staff even with substantial revenue loss: from March to May, the restaurant lost just under half a million dollars.

“It’s been quite an interesting ride as a whole, emotionally,” said Berlin.

The restaurant recently reopened for dine-in customers, having initially only allowed take-out, outdoor dining, and the sale of full bottles of wine or raw steaks to customers. Even as the restaurant is on track to completely reopen for business, Berlin has not yet accepted the EIDL loan but plans to out of an abundance of caution for what the fall/winter may bring.

“At this point, we’re looking to eliminate as much risk in all components of the business,” said Berlin. 

As of June 12, the Small Business Administration has approved 1,332,955 EIDL loans, totaling $90 billion. For Virginia specifically, 28,709 loans have been approved, totaling at $2 billion. 

Additionally, as of June 12, the Small Business Administration has approved 4.5 million PPP loans, totaling at $512 billion. For Virginia specifically, 103,066 have been approved, totaling at $12 billion.

Not all of these loans are going into the hands of small businesses. According to data from FactSquared, hundreds of publicly traded businesses received PPP small business loans, taking funds from struggling small businesses across the country. 

“We are not declaring bankruptcy or running away, we want financial support to continue doing business and make jobs,” said Moreno.