Street roots
10
July 22, 2011
Small business
enterprises making
a go of it in PDX
BY CHRISTEN MCCURDY
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R
A number o f organizations
offer help through
microlending. For more
information go visit the
Oregon Microenterprising
Network a t www.oregon-
microbiz.org.
Jimmy Wilson had just relocated his dry
cleaning business to the comer of N.
Williams and Fremont in 2008, when, the
global economy tanked, and his business,
like many others, began to suffer.
“I was really struggling,” he said.
Wilson found out about an organization
called Microenterprise Services of Oregon
(MESO) — then part of the Black United
Fund. He received a grant to keep his
business afloat — but he also received
technical support to ensure he would be
able to sustain the program. The
organization provides microloans — lending
an average of $2,500 — to small business
owners in the Portland area, but also offers
technical assistance to people who may not
have been prepared for the nitty-gritty of
running a business.
“I use the illustration of a life support
machine,” he said. “My business was
literally dying.”
He received technical support to assist
him with budgeting and other aspects of
running a small business. Gradually, he said,
with MESO’s help, “I started getting a
heartbeat again.”
MESO Executive Director Nita Shah said
many small business owners — especially
those coming from disadvantaged
backgrounds just “dive in” without a plan for
the future, and find themselves faltering
along the way, which is where her
organization comes in.
MESO started in 2005, at that time under
th p n m W I a n f
fílark JIn.íteA .Eiin£ Í,,At ^
the time Mes© was giving out several grants
to small businesses that needed help to
continue. In 2007, MESO started its
microfinance program and in 2008 MESO
incorporated as a 501(c)3 nonprofit separate
from the Black United Fund, funded now by
foundation grants and donations.
Seventy-five percent of MESO’s clients
are below 50 percent of median income,
saidShah. Forty-One percent are black, eight
percent are African immigrants, eight
percent are Asian and seven percent are
Hispanic. Fifty-nine percent of MESO’s
clients are female.
The loans were no-interest at the
beginning, but now MESO charges a small
amount of interest, though they don’t
expect to make money from the loans, Shah
said.
The organization is set up as a nonprofit
and is able to make smaller loans than most
banks will bother with. The average loan
amount is between $2,500 and $5,000. The
largest was $25,000 and the smallest was
just $80.
“We are not a social services
organization,” Shah said. MESO doesn’t give
Julie Derrick owner o fJD ’s Shoe Repair on N. Vancouver a n d Fremont.
out grants anymore because staff members
want business owners to understand “how
the real world works.” Business owners
don’t get loans until they have some history
with the organization and can prove they are
able to work hard and have a viable business
plan.
The stringent requirements seem to have
paid off: 98 percent of the 50 businesses
that have received funding from MESO are
still in business, and 97 percent have paid
off their Ioans.
The recession has continued to have a
devestating effect on many Oregonians with
the jobless rate remaining high at 9.4
percent as of June of this year. According to
the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 9.6 percent
of Americans were, unemployed at the end
of 20Í0 — resulting in more than 14 million
people out of work. This doesn’t account for
the many thousands of people who have
timed out of unemployment.
A recent study put out this week by the
Association of Enterprise Opportunity, a
national membership organization
representing microenterprise based in
Washington D.C., says that nearly 40 million
people who are self-employed are living at
or below the poverty line.
The report goes on to say that in 2010
major U.S. commercial banks turned down
roughly one million applications for small
business financing. “If just one in three
small businesses hired one employee then
the U.S. would be at full employment. A
$5,000 dollar increase in revenues per
microbusinesses per year would generate
more than $20 billion dollars — less than
$500 in additional sales per month per
business.
The report also says a female business
owner in the Pacific Northwest has only a
14% chance of generating $100,000 in
annual sales — the highest odds compared
to women in any other region in the
p h o t o b y isr ael
country.
“They (MESO) gave me homework,” says
Julie Derrick, the owner of JD’s Shoe Repair
- which shares a building with Jimmy’s Dry
Cleaning. “I had to make goals and I had to
meet them.”
Derrick, a former union organizer and
community organizer, had always wanted to
learn to repair shoes and finally decided to
go for it, taking jobs in other cobblers’
shops to learn the trade. After she was laid
off in 2009, she decided to pursue her
dream of opening her own store and began
researching loan opportunities, and found
MESO a good fit for the type of assistance
she needed.
Now her business is booming. “Shoe
repair i§ actually op tlie inchjje. People ape
« aver
According to the Portland
Development Commission
nearly 8 7 percent o f the
businesses in Portland have
five employees or less.
making do with what they have.” she saidj
She described herself as the only openly
queer-identified cobbler in Portland, and the
LGBT community has been extremely
supportive, with some customers reporting
they’ve faced discrimination or hostility in
other, more conservative Stores. She’s also
the only cobbler in her Section of North
Portland, and the neighborhood has been
extremely supportive.
“My business is really proving to be for
everyone,” Derrick said.
She added that MESO businesses tend to
support each other, and being part of the
network has been one of the unexpected
pluses of her involvement with the
organization.
Wilson agrees. He leases space to four
food carts in the parking lot of his business
(two of which are operated by MESO
clients). A lifelong North Portland resident,
Wilson said he wants to pay the assistance
he’s received forward to other business
owners.
“I believe that small business is the
lifeblood of the economy, of the
community,” he said.
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