Small businesses continue business as usual in Detroit and Southeast Michigan despite Detroit bankruptcy.
Once again we see that businesses operate independent of the city government and unlike many politicians want us to believe, those small business owners are responsible for building their wealth.
Case in point, we see the bankrupt City of Detroit, Michigan. The City has been hit by misallocations, corruption, nepotism, and now bankruptcy. Yet the small businesses still create new jobs and growth for the residents of Southeast Michigan.
Bankruptcy is not always the best course of action, but if it can ease the burden on these Michigan small business owners, it is worth the fight to provide a better future.
As Mayor-elect Mike Duggan prepares to dive into a potential city government bankruptcy, Ken Harris prepares to host a national training conference today for small businesses.
And one has little to do with the other, said Harris, president and CEO of the Michigan Black Chamber of Commerce.
Detroit’s fiscal crisis is having a negligible, if any, effect on its small businesses, said Harris.
“Bankruptcy will not stop private investment and will not stop everyday entrepreneurs from growing their businesses,” Harris said on the eve of the conference that will bring Obama administration officials to workshops to talk to small-business owners, the front line of the nation’s — and Detroit’s — economic recovery.
Harris’ words echoed those from state and federal officials, who agree that southeast Michigan’s economic focus should be fueling Detroit’s renaissance through small-business growth.
“The Detroit bankruptcy is not a bankruptcy for business in Detroit,” said Michael A. Finney, president and CEO of the Michigan Economic Development Corp., the public-private partnership that fosters business, job and economic growth for the state. “Detroit’s is a municipal problem, not a business problem. The companies we’re talking to in Detroit and around Detroit … we’re not getting messages from them that this is a huge impact. … We’re still not hearing from companies that they won’t consider Detroit because of the bankruptcy issue.”
Finney said the state is interested in working more with the more than 50,000 small-business owners in Detroit — and the more than 800,000 around the state — whose success is vital to a successful Michigan.
Harris said the best way to do that is to create better access to capital and training, particularly for the 32,000 black-owned businesses in Detroit, so those companies can grow and hire.
“How many of those companies might have jobs over the next two years?” Harris asked. “The jobs could come from this underserved economy. But when you have businesses that are receiving no access to capital, no resources, no infrastructure investment or venture capital funds, where there is no focus, no interest in the neighborhoods, then they cannot contribute to the overall development of the economy and the city.”
The black chamber invited White House officials to today’s all-day conference to talk about everything from the Affordable Care Act to grant opportunities. Don Graves, the president’s point person to help Detroit spend $300 million in aid announced last month, is expected to participate, Harris said.
That is exactly the kind of training businesses must get, but it shouldn’t stop there, said Gerald L. Moore, director of the Michigan office of the U.S. Small Business Administration.
“The biggest obstacle to success for small-business owners is that they don’t know what they don’t know,” he said, “and we don’t do a good enough job of educating and communicating with them.”
Detroit Free Press: http://www.freep.com/article/20131107/COL10/311070037/Detroit-small-business-bankruptcy-economy
