The San Diego County Board of Supervisors has approved a $300,000 grant for the East County Economic Development Council’s revolving loan fund, which lends to small businesses that may struggle to get a traditional bank loan.
The program offers loans of up to $5,000. Borrowers can spend the money on equipment, working capital or expansion. Once a loan is repaid, the money goes back into the fund and can be lent to the next business in line. The fund will also serve unincorporated parts of East County and connect entrepreneurs with other help and resources.
Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe, the board’s vice chair, and Supervisor Joel Anderson proposed the grant.
“Many times folks don’t have the capital, and so this provides an opportunity for small businesses, startups, microbusinesses to get that funding that they really need to get their idea off the ground,” Montgomery Steppe said. She said the aim goes past helping individual owners. Business owners who get help can later help others in the same spot, she said.
A local owner’s view
Karl Burris owns Wise Owl Fit in Santee, a group fitness gym for older adults. In June it became East County’s first Rock Steady Boxing affiliate, with a program built for people with Parkinson’s disease.
Burris likes the fund’s design. “That’s having something local to East County and having a revolving fund where once it’s paid back, it just keeps going right back out to serve the community,” he said.
He thinks the effect reaches beyond the loans. “It just breeds more small business owners,” Burris said. “In my opinion, the more small business owners you have, the more of that small-town, close-knit feel you have.”
