By Murray Wennerlund published 1-2-2022 updated 8-23-2022
SBA December 29, 2021, "Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman, head of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and the voice for America's 32.5 million small businesses in President Biden's Cabinet, issued the following statement praising President Biden's appointment of Louisiana State Representative Edward "Ted" James II as Regional Administrator for the SBA's South Central region:"
One question that should be asked of Mr. James is if he intends to take the SBA DOB issue that thousands of disaster recovery survivors experience each and every disaster to a close. Will he fight for low-income, moderate-income and average-income households in an effort to reduce disaster debt?
With more natural disasters yearly and limited federal grants the SBA disaster loan program has grown in both lending as well as defaulted loans by those that technically never should have been approved a loan.
7-13-2018, Louisiana Task Force Member 2016 floods, Rep. James: "What I have not heard, what I have not witnessed is a true fight for this duplication of benefits issue to be corrected." (Video, additional information linked here.)
SBA News Release: "When Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated his home state, he was among those on-the-ground helping Louisianans rebuild and recover," said SBA Administrator Guzman.
When we questioned Mr. James on 7-13-2018 regarding the SBA and Duplications of Benefits he asked where were lived. Since we were not in his district (101) he ignored us. But, one of his constituents made his feelings very clear, with a simple word (Affluent) he had Mr. James laughing while we attempted to speak with him about the thousands of SBA loans penalizing low and moderate income families. (Story here, Task Force Public Input: Citizens Proposed SBA Disaster Federal Assistance Declined Solution. and State of Louisiana accepted HUD Guidance Nov 16 2011 76 FR 71060 Duplication of Benefits policy)
We will be following the career move of Mr. James and will be publishing the SBA S.O.P. updates that penalize low income households if they do not accept the additional disaster debt burden that FEMA and the SBA demands disaster survivors do. For those without insurance, self-employed, low-income grant programs such as the HUD CDBG-DR are provided to assist in unmet needs of disaster recovery. With the SBA lending to individuals and businesses that clearly have no ability to repay a loan the SBA is setting up families to fail and possibly lose their family business and/or home.
Let's ask Mr. James if he will adjust the loan processing policies to deny loans to low income households and refer them directly to HUD CDBG-DR programs managed by state governors.