Minority-owned small businesses in Baltimore and elsewhere struggling to access financing may be able to get help through a new public-private federal partnership announced Monday in East Baltimore.
Commerce Department officials signed a national agreement with St. Louis-based nonprofit Urban Strategies Inc. to provide resources, including access to capital and technical support, to minority-owned businesses in Baltimore and about two dozen other metropolitan areas.
These are “all of the challenges that minority-owned businesses have had historically,” Urban Strategies President Esther Shin said at an event in Perkins Square, a former public housing project owned by the city's Perkins Homes that the nonprofit is working with residents of and is being redeveloped into mixed-income housing. “This partnership is really about removing those barriers.”
Urban Strategies is designated as a Community Development Financial Institution, which allows it to provide financial services to low-income areas and people who lack access to financing.
Commerce Department officials visited Baltimore to announce Urban Strategies was joining the city's network in recognition of the nonprofit's work and the city's growing entrepreneurial community, said Eric Morrissette, acting assistant secretary of Commerce for the federal Office of Minority Business Development.
The agency is expanding its partnerships and currently has more than 100 cooperative agreements in place with organizations across the country, as well as memoranda of understanding with other community development financial institutions and federal government agencies.
“Our job is to create wealth, to bring wealth to minority businesses across the country,” Morissette said.
Owner Ancil McDonald said after spending several years trying to get Maryland Skin Care Institute off the ground, Urban Strategies helped her secure a loan that allowed her to move forward and hire employees. She said she plans to move her business from Prince George's County to Baltimore.
“Fundraising is a nightmare for small businesses, especially minority- and women-owned businesses,” McDonald said, but Urban Strategies helped her find people who “shared the same dream as me.”
Baltimore City Housing Authority officials said Monday that supporting minority-owned businesses fits into the city's strategy to revitalize communities like East Baltimore, where the Perkins Somerset Old Town redevelopment will create 796 units of housing with a 1:1 mix of public, workforce and market-rate housing. The first phase of 103 mixed-income apartments was completed in April.
“Starting a business is a tough project; keeping it going is even more of a challenge,” said Michael Moore, the housing authority's vice president and chief administrative officer. “But the revenue these local businesses generate tends to stay in the community. When small businesses succeed, the local community succeeds.”
