SF’s Small Businesses Can Apply for $35k Relief of Unpaid Rent Debt
San Francisco small businesses can apply for a grant to pay rent debt due to COVID-19. This grant will pay for a portion of the rent debt you accrued from March 2020 to September 2021 if your property owner agrees to extend your repayment term to September 2024.
The pilot program will provide a grant of 50% of the amount of back rent you owe up to $35,000. We have a total investment of $2 million and expect to fund a minimum of 50 businesses.
Businesses must be current on rent payments starting October 2021. The application will close on April 1, 2022 at 5 PM. Awardees will be notified on April 22, 2022, if they were accepted into the program.
What to do
1. Check if your business is eligible
Your business must:
- Have less than $2.5M in gross revenue in 2020
- Be currently operating in San Francisco and plan to stay for at least a year
- Have unpaid rent debt accrued between March 2020 and September 2021
- Have paid all of the rent you owe since October 2021
- Not be primarily home or office-based
- Not have received $25,000 or more in grants or loan forgiveness from OEWD since March 2020
- Must agree to attend a webinar if selected
- Have your property owner agree to extend your repayment term to at least September 2024
Your business must also meet at least 1 of these requirements:
- Be a business that was mandated to close for more than 6 months due to the City Health Orders (like a salon, gym, or bar) or
- Be located in an Invest In Neighborhoods Opportunity Neighborhood commercial corridor or Cultural District or
- Not received more than $5,000 in grants from OEWD since March 2020 or
- Have an owner from a low- or extremely low-income household
2. Gather information about your business
We will ask you for:
- Your Business Account Number (BAN). If you don’t know it, you can look it up.
- Your 2020 gross receipts
- Amount of any grants from OEWD since COVID began
- How much back rent you owe from March 2020 to September 2021
3. Gather your family income
Family size: We will ask you how many people are in your family. A family is a single person or a group of people who live together, regardless of actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status.
Family income: We will also ask you about the income for all adults in your family. Use your 2020 tax return if you have filed or estimate your total income for the last 12 months.
4. Apply
The deadline for applications is April 1, 2022 at 5:00 PM PST.
Please read the directions carefully before applying. The date you apply will not affect how we evaluate your application. We will review every application submitted by the deadline.
We will ask you a few questions to check if you are eligible for the grant. If you are, you can then apply.
This will take about 15 minutes.
5. What to expect after you apply
We will email you a confirmation.
We will email you on April 22, 2022 to let you know the status of your application.
Businesses that are accepted into the program will have 60 days to attend an educational webinar and complete a Program Agreement signed by the property owner they owe rent to.
Read more at SF.gov.
View this post on Instagram
