Congressmember Nydia M. Velázquez joined with government officials and local lenders to host a workshop to give advice to small business owners in Queens.
“Information is power,” said Velázquez, who is the chair of the House Committee on Small Business. “Remember, not every time you have the answer, and you can get help.”
The discussion on Monday, July 26 at the Sunnyside Library revolved around how to help business owners and entrepreneurs learn about affordable financing sources that can help them expand their operations and grow their ventures. Over 50 people attended the workshop, many of them small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs
The panelists included Jorge Silva-Puras, Region II director of the U.S. Small Business Administration; Nicholas Tavantzis, senior vice president and market sales executive at Capital One Bank; Peter Bonet, vice president of Citibank; Nancy de la Cruz from the microlending organization ACCION USA; Man-Li Lin from the U.S. Small Business Administration; and Edwin Hong from the non-profit community development financial institution SEEDCO.
“These are people who have knowledge and can help you get access to capital,” said Brian Gurski, regional director of the Small Business Development Center at LaGuardia Community College, who helped organized the event and provides assistance to many local businesses.
Velázquez, who represents Maspeth, Ridgewood and Woodside, as well as parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan, said she worked on a bill that passed in the U.S. House of Representatives, but now needs approval from the U.S. Senate, that would give $30 billion to community banks to lend to small business owners. She said she comes home on the weekends from Washington, D.C. and shops in her district’s commercial strips and business owners always complain about not getting access to credit.
“I know how small businesses have been struggling,” Velázquez said. “I wasn’t too eager to pass legislation unless the money went to small businesses.”
For the past six months, she said, New York has continued to create jobs and two out of three of those new jobs are created by small business owners. That’s why she said small business owners need access to loans.
“Unless we create jobs, this road to recovery will be much more difficult,” Velázquez said.
