City Of San Antonio: Councilman Perry Urges City Council And Staff To Pursue More Small Business Funding

Press release from the City of San Antonio:

September 1, 2021

CONTACT: Landry Stafford
Office: 210-207-7276
landry.stafford@sanantonio.gov

SAN ANTONIO (September 1, 2021) – Yesterday, City Council was briefed on the City’s small business recovery efforts. The following statement was released in response to yesterday’s revelations on the recovery effort:

“The pandemic wreaked havoc on businesses across the nation, and it hit San Antonio’s small and micro business community especially hard. Based on data my office has been tracking since September 2020, San Antonio has lost between 38-40% of our small businesses since the start of the pandemic, and their revenue has declined by 45%. According to the City’s Economic Development Department, San Antonio was ranked 38 out of 49 when analyzing the cities with the strongest economic recoveries from COVID-19. We are ranked behind other Texas cities like Ft. Worth, Dallas, El Paso, and Austin; however, we have yet to work with them to discover how they recovered so strongly.

CARES Act funding was meant to provide our economy with the assistance it needed immediately, and workforce development is a long-term fix. It’s likely the cities with the strongest recoveries used the CARES Act funding they received to assist their struggling businesses in need, rather than set up aspirational programs like we did in San Antonio. I have pushed to provide additional resources and funding to our small businesses since the beginning of the pandemic. Seeing how other cities have recovered faster and more efficiently than San Antonio proves to me that we need to better invest our limited resources where they are immediately needed.

Once again, I challenge my colleagues on Council and City staff to continue to pursue funding to help our small businesses in San Antonio.”

This press release was produced by the City of San Antonio. The views expressed here are the author’s own.