SBA offering disaster recovery assistance to PNPs

ACROSS MISSISSIPPI — The U.S. Small Business Administration announced that certain private non-profit organizations (PNPs) that provide services of a governmental nature might be eligible to apply for low interest rate disaster loans.

The loans are available following a President Obama’s disaster declaration for public assistance resulting from damages caused by severe storms, tornadoes, high winds and flooding that occurred April 15-28.

PNPs located in Chickasaw, Choctaw, Clarke, Greene, Hinds, Jasper, Kemper, Lafayette, Monroe, Neshoba and Webster counties are eligible to apply to SBA.

PNPs that provide non-critical services are eligible to apply. PNP organizations may borrow up to $2 million to repair or replace damaged or destroyed real estate, machinery and equipment, inventory and other business assets. The SBA may increase a loan up to 20 percent of the total amount of disaster damage to real estate and/or leasehold improvements, as verified by SBA, to make improvements that lessen the risk of property damage by future disasters of the same kind.

The SBA also offers Economic Injury Disaster Loans to help meet working capital needs, such as ongoing operating expenses to PNP organizations of all sizes. Economic Injury Disaster Loan assistance is available regardless of whether the organization suffered any physical property damage.

Disaster loan information and application forms may be obtained by calling the SBA’s Customer Service Center at 1-800-659-2955 (1-800-877-8339 for people with speech or hearing disabilities), or by sending an email to disastercustomerservice@sba.gov. Applications can also be downloaded from www.sba.gov. Completed applications should be mailed to: U.S. Small Business Administration, Processing and Disbursement Center, 14925 Kingsport Road, Fort Worth, TX 76155.

PNPs may visit SBA’s secure website at https://disasterloan.sba.gov/ela/ to apply for disaster loans.

The filing deadline to return applications for physical property damage is June 28, 2011.

The deadline to return economic injury applications is January 30, 2012.

Source: SBA