BY BCNN1.COM
Leaders of black churches nationwide are concerned they are being shut out of accessing financial assistance under the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program even as other churches appear to be getting help, the NAACP says.
“We have representation from all of our nine major African-American denominations,” Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, said in an NPR report Saturday. “Most of them have complained about the lack of responsiveness from the banks to which they have submitted applications. These are churches from San Francisco to Detroit to Florida to Connecticut. We hear a consistent concern from church leaderships across the country.”
The PPP is a loan designed to provide a direct incentive for small businesses, including faith-based organizations and other nonprofits, to keep their workers on the payroll, the SBA says. If all employees are kept on the payroll for eight weeks and the money is used for payroll, rent, mortgage interest, or utilities, these loans, which are administered by banks and other federally insured depository institution, will be forgiven.
While a number of churches have reported receiving funding through the program, the number of churches with predominantly black congregants have been anecdotally few and far between.
“We applied when the program first became public, but we did not receive any funding,” the Rev. James Perkins, pastor of Greater Christ Baptist Church in Detroit, which has a predominantly African-American congregation, told NPR.
Perkins said because he received no help, he was forced to lay off most of his church’s nine employees while others had to take salary cuts.
“I haven’t taken any scientific survey, but a number of black pastors with whom I have relationships in Detroit are concerned, because they did not receive funding [too],” Perkins said.
Rev. Kenneth Flowers, pastor at Greater New Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist in Detroit said he was told to wait by his bank when he tried to submit his application.
“We tried to submit an application to our bank, but they kept saying they were not ready,” Flowers said, “and then we got an email saying all the funds have been deployed. We’re discovering that there’s a pattern here of minority businesses and black churches not receiving the funds.”