A Katrina Mystery Solved

When da po’ ma qualified for a SBA loan, I was confused. I thought she might have been operating a little something on the side and not telling da po’ boy. I thought maybe my prospects in her will were looking up.

Alas, it turns out that in times of disaster, you don’t have to own a business to get an SBA loan (WaPo link):

Though its usual mandate is helping small businesses, it is charged with helping homeowners and renters as well as all businesses damaged in disasters. That is because a New Deal program coupled the two loan programs during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and both were transferred to the SBA when it was created in 1953.

I still think it is strange that the SBA is handling non-business owners’ loans. Wouldn’t that cause some confusion? I mean, *I’m* confused:

Another quirk makes it necessary for homeowners with low incomes, who wouldn't qualify for a loan, to go through the process at SBA anyway. That's because FEMA, which give out grants in disasters, can consider only those who have been turned down for a loan.

So you have to be refused a loan in order to get one? I don’t get it.

But I am not here to get it. That is proven to me everyday.

Also, the SBA has declined 70% of the loan applications they have processed and only approved 21%. And they have processed less than half of the applications they have received.

In the midst of all this SBA confusion, I completely missed that the article was about Hubig’s Pies, which is back up and running.

Of course, the SBA hasn’t approved their loan yet.