Small businesses that have struggled during the coronavirus pandemic in dozens of New Jersey towns can apply to receive up to $10,000 in federal funding to help pay their rent under a new program Gov. Phil Murphy announced Thursday.
The emergency program will disburse $6 million in federal CARES Act funding to small businesses that qualify in 64 of the Garden State’s 565 municipalities — many of which are urban communities with “special challenges,” Murphy said.
The governor said the move not only aims to help businesses but the property owners who collect rent, both of whom have been hurt during the crisis.
Officials stressed this is a grant and not a loan, meaning those who receive it won’t have to repay it.
“COVID-19 has upended our economy in a way that only has occurred twice in our state’s history — the Great Depression in the ’20s and ‘30s and the Civil War,” Murphy said during a news conference in Long Branch. “We will not let COVID-19 take us down.”
“But we cannot get to where we need to be and where we know we will be without the women and men who own and operate the small businesses that make a municipality into a community and turn a street into a gathering place for that community,” he added.
The program, formally called the Small Business Lease-Emergency Assistance Grant Program, will be managed by the New Jersey Redevelopment Authority. The grants will be offered to tenants that lease commercial space in mixed-use buildings, tenants leasing space in commercial buildings, and tenants leasing space to operate a storefront business.
The target will be businesses with 5,000 square feet of leased space or less. Applications will be open starting Aug. 10, and funds will be on a first-come, first-serve basis.
The 64 municipalities eligible under the plan are the ones covered by the Redevelopment Authority.
Murphy said many are “historic urban centers and towns which have worked hard to re-energize and redefine themselves.”
“We need our local economies to rebound from this crisis and come out the other side strong,” Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver said at Thursday’s event. “But we can only expect that result by directing programs and funding toward solving the individual problems that are holding local businesses back.”
New Jersey, one of the state’s hit hardest by the pandemic, has seen its economy severely damaged over the last five months. More than 1.4 million people have filed for unemployment and many businesses have lost untold revenue in the wake of restrictions and business closings Murphy ordered in March.
On Wednesday, Murphy said the state’s Economic Development Authority had already committed $100 million in federal coronavirus aid to help more than 20,000 small businesses in the Garden State.
But many businesses say they still need help.
More than 10,000 businesses applied for $5 million in grants a little more than an hour after the EDA opened applications in early April. Within a week, another 22,000 submitted applications for grants ranging from $1,000 to $5,000.
The EDA last month was flooded with 19,500 applications within hours of accepting requests for a new $45 million grant program for small businesses hurt by the pandemic.
Murphy has gradually peeled back lockdown orders and businesses closings as the state’s outbreak has slowed in recent months. But the governor earlier this month paused the state’s multi-phase reopening plan in Stage 2 as cases surge in other states and New Jersey saw its transmission rate creep back up. Many businesses remain closed — including gyms, movie theaters, and the indoor dining sections of bars and restaurants.
Murphy has also repeatedly pleaded with the federal government to approve more coronavirus aid, to help small businesses and to bolster states’ budgets that have hemorrhaged tax revenue because of restrictions and business closings. He has said there could be massive layoffs of public workers without more federal money.
The governor has argued that his lockdown orders have been crucial to saving lives. But Republicans have repeatedly criticized Murphy, a Democrat, of rolling back restrictions too slowly and making arbitrary decisions that have suffocated small businesses.
CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage
On Tuesday, former Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, accused Murphy, a Democrat, of not doing enough to help those businesses during the pandemic, while fighting for public workers.
“In the end, this has not been shared sacrifice,” Christie said.
Murphy fired back on Wednesday, saying “public sector workers were crushed under” Christie.
New Jersey on Thursday reported 23 more deaths attributed to COVID-19 and 344 more positive tests.
The state has now reported 15,730 deaths — 13,810 confirmed and 1,920 considered probable — with 177,887 confirmed cases since its first case was announced March 4.
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Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com.
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