PEORIA, Ill. — Peoria’s new RISE program, designed to assist local business owners hard hit by the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, will receive a fresh injection of cash following a reported flood of applications.
Tuesday night, Assistant City Manager Kimberly Richardson informed council members the program has been overwhelmed by more than 300 applications and dozens of additional qualified businesses.
Richardson told council that the program has appropriated money to assist 36 women/minority or veteran owned businesses in Peoria so far.
The program began taking applications for grants back in early May.
Now, following unanimous approval by the city council, it will benefit from roughly an additional $1.5M to go towards the effort of helping impacted business owners scale their operations back up to pre-pandemic levels.
During the meeting, City Manager Patrick Urich reminded council members and those in attendance that each qualified business must first prove they suffered a real economic loss before being considered for assistance through this program.
Also at Tuesday night’s meeting, council members unanimously approved a framework for appropriating more than $1M in American Rescue Act funding meant to address some of the root causes of violent crime in the city.
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