April 24, 2020
Kate Frese/for PhillyVoice
Philadelphia will receive additional funding for small business loans through the federal Paycheck Protection Program, which will get $60 billion in replenished funding through legislation signed on Friday.
Philadelphia businesses hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic will soon be able to take advantage of funding provided by the $484 billion federal relief package, Mayor Jim Kenney said.
The law, signed by President Donald Trump on Friday, replenishes the Paycheck Protection Program, which ran out of funds. The program was created last month by the $2.2 trillion CARES Act.
The new law provides another $310 billion in PPP funding, including $60 billion reserved for community banks and small lenders.
"We're particularly pleased that a portion of the PPP funding will be set aside for businesses that do not have established banking relationships, including many minority-owned business," Kenney said.
The city is finalizing a partnership with Goldman Sachs and Lendistry.com that will provide several million dollars in potentially forgivable Small Business Administration PPP loans to small businesses in the Philadelphia area.
"We don't yet have all the details of how much of this new funding will come to Philadelphia, but all additional resources are critical at this juncture," Kenney said.
Philadelphia's COVID-19 Small Business Relief Fund already has disbursed $9.2 million in grants and loans to 1,145 small businesses. Approximately $3 million remaining in the program will be awarded in the coming weeks. The application window closed earlier this month.
The city also announced that the Philadelphia Housing Authority received a $30 million grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to further invest in affordable housing units as part of the Sharswood/Blumberg neighborhood transformation plan.
Philadelphia reported 650 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, bringing the city's total to 11,877. The daily count of new infections continues to be skewed by labs reporting results in batches for tests taken on different days. To smooth this out, the health department updates its charts as results become available, meaning past dates may also see increases from initially reported numbers.
Six additional fatalities were confirmed on Friday, bringing the city's total to 449, including 236 nursing home residents.
Philadelphia hospitals currently are treating 1,013 COVID-19 patients, while 1,881 patients are receiving care for the virus in hospitals across the Philadelphia region.
"Overall, our level of case count indicates that we are continuing to make progress," Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley said. "These are not the increases that we saw early on in the epidemic, but still, with hundreds of cases being diagnosed every day, we're still in the thick of this."
