CRA Launches $250,000 Disaster Assistance Program for GFS District Businesses

At their meeting on June 29, the Tallahassee Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) board unanimously voted to establish a $250,000 disaster assistance program for businesses in the Greater Frenchtown/Southside (GFS) district.

According to a press release, the purpose of the program is to give aid to small businesses within the district that are struggling with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tallahassee Mayor John Dailey, who chairs the CRA board, said, “This is another way we are assisting small businesses in the Greater Frenchtown and Southside CRA district…I am pleased that my colleagues and I unanimously supported putting $250,000 into the hands of local business owners suffering from the impacts of COVID-19.”

The program will give a $2,000 grant to each approved business on a first-come, first-served basis.

According to the press release, “Eligible businesses include those that operate in the GFS district; opened prior to March 18, 2020; have current business registration; and provide a demonstrated negative impact of COVID-19.”

Businesses that have already received grants from the Office of Economic Vitality’s COVID-19 Economic Disaster Relief (CEDR) program will not be eligible for the disaster assistance grants.

According to the press release, businesses within the GFS district can also receive up to $50,000 from the CRA Business Facility Improvement Program (BFIP). The program provides funding to improve the exteriors of commercial buildings in the GFS district.

According to the June 29 CRA meeting agenda, there are 799 businesses in the GFS district, and they employ 8,026 people. Most businesses in the district are small, with less than 10 employees in the average Frenchtown business and 13 employees in the average Southside business.

Grant applications and additional information for both programs are available here.

Lexie Pitzen

Lexie Pitzen is a student at Florida State University majoring in Information, Communication and Technology. She has contributed to Cat Family Records' T.ART Zine, The Tally Wire and the FSView and Florida Flambeau. In her home state of Minnesota, she also wrote for several local newspapers.

View all posts by Lexie Pitzen →

4 Comments

  1. TONY
    TONY

    Just make sure it goes to Local Small Businesses and NOT Developers.

  2. Hope
    Hope

    The local minority ministers need to stop allowing politicians to use their congregations to preach their politics and local ministers need to quit promoting Gillum and Curtis and get back to teaching the Word.

    They are part of the problem rather than the solution in that they are condoning and promoting the corruption rather than denouncing it.

    Also the congregations need to wake up and look to the Lord for guidance and not Curtis and Gillum.

    Curtis is part of the Maddox and Gillum regime and The Minister's need to step aside.

  3. Thomas C. Hooker
    Thomas C. Hooker

    At least the County had the intelligence to get out of the CRA. The City continues to be 'maddoxed'.

    "...also receive up to $50,000 from the CRA Business Facility Improvement Program (BFIP)" I am sure that at least one of our local reverends has already secured his full $50,000 for some paint, some brick, or some signage.

    1. Snidely Whiplash
      Snidely Whiplash

      Payments to the local minority church ministers with money for helping to shepherd their flock into voting for the Democratic candidate has been routine business as usual for our local government since before the Jim Crow days.

      However it is just as illegal as what Scott Maddox did.

      Locals involved in this practice dont know who the FBI's been talking to and any one of the local minority ministers would be a piece of cake for the FBI to flip against dirty politicians.

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