What is gentrification?

How does it affect small businesses?

The Small Business Anti-Displacement Network (SBAN) is working to share answers and solutions. The work of the network is to remind people that small businesses are a vital part of economically healthy, socially vibrant, and environmentally sustainable communities.

Unfortunately, small family-owned businesses are highly vulnerable to displacement and financial stress when neighborhoods gentrify. Minority and immigrant-owned businesses get hit particularly hard. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic collapse, these divides and inequities have been even more evident, exposing heightened vulnerabilities in minority communities.

Culture of Health Leader Bobby Boone, founder and chief strategist of &Access, works as a senior practitioner for SBAN.

“Minority-owned retailers and restaurants offer a unique culture to neighborhoods across the nation,  but, similar to minority residential populations, the businesses are often at greatest risk,” Boone said. “These businesses have been among the hardest hit by the pandemic’s economic devastation and there is a unique opportunity, right now, to redesign systems to support them.”

The local, national, and international leaders, policymakers, and government agencies engaged in SBAN hope that their work will create greatly needed solutions.

“We are excited to bring together small business leaders from around the country with the common goal of keeping businesses in place,” said Kiara Garland, project manager for the network. “We look forward to sharing the practices, policies, and tools that come from this collaborative network of stakeholders.”

To find out more or apply to become a member, visit the Small Business Anti-Displacement Network.

SBAN, a project of the University of Maryland and the National Center for Smart Growth, is sponsored by JPMorgan Chase & Co.