(EDITOR’S NOTE: All funds for this grant program have been committed and the City is no longer taking applications.)
COVINGTON, Ky. - The City of Covington has created another program to help businesses protect jobs and survive the pandemic - and this one offers up to $50,000 per grant.
Mayor Joe Meyer signed an executive order today creating the “Emergency Business Assistance Program” and setting aside $350,000 from federal funds.
Given the source of the funds, businesses must meet requirements related to benefiting low- and/or moderate-income residents, whether by employing them, providing goods or services to them, or being located in such a neighborhood.
Economic Development Director Tom West called the program another “tool” - and this one a “power tool” - in the City’s proverbial toolbox of business assistance.
“This enhances our ability to help our businesses, some of whom have been significantly hurt by the pandemic, and it offers a much higher potential grant than, for example, our emergency rent subsidy program - which by the way still has money available for small businesses,” West said.
Details about the new program and its application form can be found HERE. The mayor’s executive order can be found
HERE.
As always, an application is not a guarantee of funding.
In addition, applicants must contact and be working with the Kentucky Small Business Development Center on business coaching, contingency planning, and accessing federal disaster loans. (They can either work with the small-business coach operating out of office space provided by the City at Aviatra Accelerators on Pike Street or with the SBDC office at Northern Kentucky University.)
Specifically, the eligible activities/uses of the funds are:
- Supporting new businesses or business expansion to create jobs that manufacture medical supplies necessary to respond to infectious disease.
- Avoid job loss caused by business closures related to social distancing by providing short-term working capital assistance to small businesses to enable retention of jobs held by low- and moderate-income persons.
- Provide assistance to establish, stabilize, and expand microenterprises (businesses with 5 or fewer employees) that provide medical, food delivery, cleaning, and other services to support home health and quarantine.
For more information, contact Suzann Gettys, the City’s business retention & expansion specialist, at sgettys@covingtonky.gov or (859) 292-2141.
“While the City has already made available other emergency assistance, we heard and knew that the businesses needed more,” Gettys said. “So we’ve responded with a program that increases the potential amount of assistance and that makes sure it’s in the form of a grant instead of a loan so they don’t have to worry about payback as they try to stay afloat during this precarious time.”
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