WASHINGTON – This week, SBA Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman announced the agency finalized a rule to increase support to disaster survivors and small businesses needing relief following a federally declared disaster. The rule becomes effective for all disasters declared on or after July 31, 2023.
“The Biden-Harris Administration has prioritized maximizing resources for disaster survivors so that they can successfully recover and build resilience to the effects of climate change that have led to more frequent and costly natural disasters,” said Administrator Guzman. “The SBA’s disaster loan program rule modifications will ensure more flexible and affordable disaster loans are available for small businesses, nonprofits, renters, and homeowners that will allow them to focus on recovering quickly so their communities can survive and thrive again.”
“For the first time in nearly 30 years, accounting for decades of inflation and rising construction costs, SBA is more than doubling the caps for its home disaster loan program. Increasing the loan limits ensures that communities across America have access to sufficient funding to help them rebuild homes, replace personal property, and reopen businesses when disasters strike,” said Bailey DeVries, Associate Administrator for Investment and Innovation and Acting Associate Administrator for Capital Access .
“SBA’s bold new actions continue to reshape our disaster enterprise by unleashing more capital to help devastated communities rebuild and expanding avenues to mitigate against future damage in the face of increasingly frequent and catastrophic disasters,” said Francisco Sánchez Jr., Associate Administrator of SBA’s Office of Disaster Recovery and Resilience . “While bringing the whole of SBA to the effort and inextricably tying recovery to resilience, SBA’s team is also boosting its presence in the field to lead from the ground up and ensure we are meeting the priorities of each community.”
The SBA is also expanding its mitigation assistance to other types of hazards beyond the declared disaster event. Communities are often under threat from multiple types of hazards, including hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, wildfires, earthquakes, and more. Today’s announcement will ensure that property owners can use their disaster loan funds to rebuild stronger and more resilient against multiple types of hazards and not just against a single threat.
In 2022, Administrator Guzman announced that SBA would waive the interest rate for the first year and extend the initial payment deferment period automatically to 12 months for disasters declared on or after Sept. 21, 2022, through Sept. 30, 2023. Today’s announcement makes the 12-month initial payment deferment period permanent and means SBA will continue to provide much-needed relief to disaster loan borrowers by waiving payments for the first year for all disaster loans beyond Sept. 30, 2023.