Dear WCA members,

As your chamber of commerce, we are taking every avenue to work with the city, state and elected officials to inform and advocate for our members any opportunity we find to minimize impact to businesses during the current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In doing so, we want to inform you that the U.S. Small Business Association (SBA) has been authorized to issue small business assistance through a small business economic injury disaster loan program. This program can provide low interest loans of up to $2 million to businesses and private non-profits. 

If your business has experienced substantial economic injury due to the COVID-19 pandemic, please fill out this COVID-19 impact survey circulated by the Illinois Department of Commerce. 

If you would like to learn more about the small business disaster relief economic loan, we encourage you to do so at this link. Please keep in mind that the link is getting a lot of traffic so it is slow to load.

While this loan has been approved at a federal level, it’s important to recognize that the state has not yet received a declaration, so the program is not yet available to Illinois businesses and nonprofits.

SBA is currently working with the state of Illinois to support their efforts to submit the Governor’s request for a declaration. To accomplish this, the state is identifying businesses that have experienced a substantial economic injury. This step is important as a county can only qualify if they either have an identified business that has suffered economic injury, or the county is contiguous to a declared county. Once the state has pulled together its request, it goes to SBA for review. Once a disaster is declared, the EIDL becomes available for businesses located in declared counties.

Please reach out if you have any further questions.

Thank you,

Rod Burch

Executive Director 

West Central Association