City Planning released a draft of its Local Emergency Code Amendment for public comment. The ordinance would take steps to eliminate financial and regulatory burdens on small businesses affected by the novel coronavirus. If adopted, it would expand the city’s ability to activate regulatory relief during a declared local emergency. ... read more »

“All Americans deserve equitable access to affordable housing and the physical, emotional and financial security it represents,” said Lisa Rice, CEO, National Fair Housing Alliance. “JPMorgan Chase’s new commitments will help make owning or renting a reality for more Black and Latinx families, whose housing access has been impeded by decades of systemic racism and are now disproportionately affected by the impact of COVID-19. Addressing the affordability crisis, now overlaid with the pandemic, will require many players on many fronts, and these commitments are concrete, meaningful steps in the right direction.” ... read more »

A new report released this week by the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) finds debt collectors in California may have seized more than $700 million from consumers between 2012 and 2017, even though they frequently lack sufficient documentation to establish the validity and ownership of an individual’s debt. ... read more »

There is no way around it—California’s Assembly Bill (AB) 5 has been a disaster for our state. The so-called “gig economy” legislation passed last year has been a short-sighted and dangerous attack on nearly ten percent of our state’s workforce. What’s worse—businesses continue to be attacked on all sides from attorneys looking to exploit the vague “ABC test.” And all this is peaking during the worst health crisis in a century, when millions of Californians remain jobless and small businesses are struggling to survive. ... read more »

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (CA-43), Chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, released a district data sheet which summarizes Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) data provided by the Small Business Administration (SBA) regarding loans made to businesses in Gardena, Harbor City, Hawthorne, Inglewood, Lawndale, Lomita, Los Angeles, Playa Vista, and Torrance. Over one billion dollars in PPP loans were awarded to 10,750 businesses within Congresswoman Waters’ congressional district. ... read more »

My phone buzzed. Like every other text message, I grabbed my phone immediately to read it. But this was no ordinary text. I looked down and read three words that suddenly meant someone’s life was about to change forever: “I chose Berkeley” ... read more »

A historically Black university in Louisiana has received a $20 million donation from MacKenzie Scott, the former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The gift is the largest private contribution in the school's history and part of hundreds of millions of dollars Scott announced that she had given away. ... read more »

Over the last month, several corporations have stepped up to fund the Black community.   ... read more »

Local community partners will have a role in this initiative, President of Greater Los Angeles Raul Anaya stated, “We are looking to potentially partner with philanthropy and other large businesses in L.A., because our goal is to create a program ideally that is sustainable with long standing impact. ... read more »

Amidst the slew of nationwide virtual graduation ceremonies this past June, JP Morgan Chase held a similar event for its 10-year old mentoring success program The Fellowship Initiative. TFI’s Class of 2020 will see thirty-eight predominantly Black and Latinx young men from low-income communities throughout Los Angeles attending colleges across the state, as well as Princeton in New Jersey. ... read more »

The California Department of Business Oversight (DBO) announced the launch of CalMoneySmart. This $4 million grant program was set in motion by SB 455, introduced by Senator Steven Bradford (D-Gardena) in 2019, which created the California Financial Empowerment Fund to remove financial barriers and improve monetary security.  ... read more »

Last week, Gov. Newsom presented his May Revision budget for the 2020-21 fiscal year.   ... read more »

Bank of America announced today that it has received Small Business Administration (SBA) loan approvals for 265,500 small businesses under the SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). This represents $24.9 billion in needed relief for small businesses. More than 256,000 of these small businesses have received a loan number since the SBA reopened the PPP funding on April 27. ... read more »

The $2.3 trillion coronavirus stimulus package includes a temporary tax change for individuals who make at least $1 million a year, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. The Joint Committee’s analysis shows 43,000 taxpayers in the highest income bracket, making more than $1 million a year, could save a combined $70 billion in taxes. Almost all benefits from the tax break go to people making more than $100,000 a year. ... read more »

With COVID-19 putting a financial strain on American families and businesses, millions of us are counting on our government stimulus payments.  ... read more »