Aurora meeting puts focus on Hispanic-owned businesses in the city

Carlos Avila is the owner of Day and Night Childcare in Aurora and is concerned about attracting good teachers to work at his facility and being able to pay them adequately.

"I want to see Latinos grow and see my community grow and see how we can get better as a business and what we can do in the community," Avila said while waiting for a meeting to begin Thursday in Aurora centering on Hispanic-owned small businesses in the city. "The pressure to have qualified teachers is getting tough and the kids deserve well-paid teachers."

Thursday morning at Sergio's Furniture at 36 W. Downer Place in Aurora, officials including U.S. Reps. Bill Foster, D-Naperville, and Lauren Underwood, D-Naperville, met with Hispanic small business owners to discuss their needs along with funding opportunities and ways of expanding accessibility to resources for them.

The group at the meeting included U.S. Rep. Tony Cardenas from California, as well as many local officials.

"I used to own a small business and I speak Spanish and English and my parents are from Mexico and I'm a first-generation American," Cardenas explained before the roundtable discussion began. "I just thought I'd be here and add my support and the voice that we have in Washington to make sure people know we care about small businesses and that we're here to listen and be helpful."

Underwood confirmed Thursday's meeting was more about hearing from local constituents and their concerns.

"We just wanted to hear from some small Hispanic business owners and understand what challenges they are facing," she said. "Obviously with the pandemic, many small business owners have had a bumpy ride and so as we have supported federal programs to bring additional resources to our community, we want to make sure that our communities of color are feeling the impact of those benefits."

Foster spoke about the importance of small local businesses and like Underwood said that officials have "to make sure the assistance we are providing to small businesses and the businesses themselves are hitting their target."

"We did a lot during the COVID crisis to try and keep small businesses alive and some of it was very effective, but some businesses are still struggling," Foster said. "One of the encouraging signs is the amount of new small business creation, particularly by minorities and particularly by minority women. When you look at the statistics it's one of the most significant effects and I'm personally interested in hearing about that as well the assistance we put in to make communities and their redevelopment stronger and work better."

Claudia Urrutia, owner of La Quinta de los Reyes restaurant in Aurora, said she hoped Thursday's session would be "to help businesses that are still struggling."

"I completely agree with that because those programs really helped us stem the pandemic and it was really helpful to keep our employees and also in a moment of uncertainty that these programs supported us - the loans and grants and different organizations that helped us with the system more than anything," Urritia said.

She said meetings like the one on Thursday in Aurora are important.

"I'm happy to be here and be able to share what my experience was," she said. "I always think it's good when people get together and talk about what's happening."

Javier Burgos, owner of Java Plus Coffee and Tea, said his main concern "is in regards to accessing financing and getting working capital in order for us to continue operating."

"We have our goals and our mission to expand Java Plus and one of the bigger issues we are facing is getting and obtaining financing," he said. "Sure there are programs out there, but they don't seem to be coming down (to small business owners)."

Looking ahead, Foster said a follow up to Thursday's meeting would include issues that might affect businesses looking to receive further support and assistance.

"If there are ideas that emerge and we find there are specific struggles – then very often, it's the details of the rules for applying for various grants or small business assistance programs," he said. "If we find that there are difficulties qualifying because of something that's not very important to our intention with the program then we'll bark at the bureaucrats to fix those."