Daily Trojan, June 30, 2021, Local business struggles due to losses from pandemic
Setting up Lally and Sammy’s for the day at 9 a.m., cleaning the variety store’s shelves and rearranging clothing, Beatriz Hernandez has thoughts occupied by a looming threat.
The looming threat is a call from her landlord, whose calls have become increasingly demanding since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, leaving Hernandez and her daughter Samantha Mendez, who also works at the store when she is not attending school, stressed and often depressed. With overdue rent piling up and business worse than before the pandemic began, Hernandez faces the risk of eviction from her once successful business, losing not only her source of income, but the store she loves.
Director of Fair Lending at National Community Reinvestment Coalition Anneliese Lederer said that there were certain barriers that caused the PPP loan disparity, including a lack of existing relationships with banks, banks discouraging Black and Latinx people from applying for loans, inequality in outreach and an initial rule that did not allow people with criminal records or who had defaulted on student loans to benefit from the PPP program.
