The Baton Rouge Area Chamber (BRAC) and Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI) have announced a partnership to launch a grant program, the Louisiana Small Business Rebirth Fund, to assist small businesses in the parishes that received flooding. This fund received a launch grant of $100,000 today from the NOLA Media Group as their way to pay it back from New Orleans' Katrina experiences. The partnership also involves One Acadiana, GNO Inc, and working in collaboration with local chambers of commerce, NFIB, and the Louisiana Association of Chambers of Commerce Executives (LACCE). 

Impacted businesses can sign up to be notified when the application is available.

More details are online at: www.LaBizRebirth.org

A compiled list of resources for business recovery are being maintained at www.brac.org/recovery

The Small Business Administration has opened Business Recovery Centers throughout the Capital Region. Location addresses and hours are available on BRAC’s disaster recovery page online. Representatives from the SBA will be available to meet with small businesses and to assist in applying for low-interest loans.

The Louisiana Business & Technology Center at the LSU Innovation Park is offering business counseling to flood-impacted companies and is assisting companies with filling out applications and connecting with the proper agencies. Call 225-578-7555 for more information. The SBDC at SUBR is also open and available for business counseling by appointment only.

Employee Grants

The Baton Rouge Area Foundation is establishing charitable funds for companies interested in making grants to help impacted employees. Companies are not taxed on the contributions and employees receiving grants do not pay income taxes on the grant amounts. Employees file online and receive notice and a grant, if they quality, within one week. More information is available online.

BRAC has updated its preliminary analysis of potential magnitude of the flooding’s impact on the Baton Rouge Area, first released last Friday. In summary, the analysis revealed:

• In terms of gross numbers, East Baton Rouge was most affected with 161,282 people and nearly 70,000 homes in the flood zone, up from 82,573 and 32,857 respectively.
• Almost 12,000 local businesses are in flood areas – representing approximately 35% of all Capital Area businesses. Prior to the EBR City-Parish’s updated map, only 7,364 businesses were in at-risk areas.
• Across the nine-parish region, as many as 359,619 people live in flood-affected areas, representing 146,156 homes, totaling $30.4 billion in home values. This is a tremendous increase from the 280,910 people and 110,334 homes previously cited.