brand New data: Why 800,000 candidates had been rejected disaster that is federal loansA member of staff looks on as crews clean up debris in a community inundated by Hurricane Harvey in Beaumont, Texas, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2017. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
This tale had been posted together with the elements Channel.
Introduction
It wasn’t the very first time Josefa Mendoza’s house flooded, nonetheless it ended up being the worst. Once the 47-year-old occasion coordinator fled her Southern Texas home together with her kiddies and grandchildren in June 2018 during a serious storm, water inside had risen to waistline level.
She didn’t be eligible for aid from the Federal crisis Management Agency. Therefore, like significantly more than a million People in america since 2001, she sent applications for a federal tragedy help loan through the Small Business management.
But the majority applicants don’t get one.
The low-interest loans certainly are a major way to obtain federal tragedy support open to homeowners and renters in addition to little businesses — if they’re eligible. The SBA has authorized about 609,000 loans that are such fiscal years 2001 to 2018 but rejected roughly 860,000. That doesn’t consist of loan requests that have been withdrawn, thousands of that have been closed by the SBA instead of during the demand of this applicant.
The Center for Public Integrity wanted to find out what happens after these efforts to get aid as climate change increases the risk of more and worse disasters. We acquired a dataset through a Freedom of Information Act demand that details every approved, denied and withdrawn SBA disaster-loan application through the previous 18 years. Read More