Yamuna Sherstha at her Nepali restaurant, Bhanchha Ghar, in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, on April 27, 2023.
Now, the owners of many of those small businesses, many of whom did not qualify for pandemic-era public loans and grants, worry that sharp rent increases and a lack of protections for commercial tenants could shut down their stores, just as the economy is gaining momentum. These businesses helped fuel the city’s recovery while the rest of the economy faltered, and many store owners say they fear they will be left out of the resurgence.
“As these businesses get drowned out by this tide of rising rent, culture disappears,” said Paula Segal, a lawyer with TakeRoot Justice, a nonprofit legal services group. A spokesperson for the mayor’s office said in a statement that the city was “doing everything we can to make sure small business owners are able to keep the storefronts they worked so hard to build,” including the Commercial Lease Assistance Program, which provides free legal services to small businesses. The program has helped nearly 2,000 businesses with their leases, she said.
“The pandemic really unleashed this wave of entrepreneurship,” Bowles said, in part because so many workers in industries like retail and hospitality lost their jobs and saw an opportunity to be their own bosses. “But it’s far from a given that most of these new businesses will be able to survive and grow.”
Somia Elrowmeim, a board member with the Alliance of Yemeni American Businesses, said many immigrant-owned businesses did not qualify for public grants and loans because they did not keep sufficient payroll records and in some cases employed workers living in the country illegally. He has been in the same spot for 19 years and said he was current on his $3,500-a-month rent. But he recently had to pay back $12,000 in arrears that accumulated when sales slowed because of the pandemic. He did not qualify for a public grant, he said, because his business did not make enough revenue.