WASHINGTON — The House expects to approve billions of dollars in replenished aid to small businesses Thursday. 

It’s another $310 billion, on top of the last $350 billion, for what’s called Paycheck Protection Program loans, but some panic is rising from Southern California businesses about the new plan.

The PPP loans were widely popular, and the money allocated to California was wiped out within the first few days.

CEO Ken Martinet leads one of the largest youth mentoring nonprofits in Southern California: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Los Angeles County. Martinet has been with the nonprofit for 25 years, and he said he hasn’t seen a roadblock quite like this. 

“It’s a perfect storm,” Martinet said.

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Big Brothers Big Sisters has operated for about 95 years, connecting mentors to children who may need guidance. In the wake of the coronavirus, Martinet had to pivot mentoring and make it available online. On top of that, he said he’s struggling to work around revenue losses which keep his staff paid. 

“We’ve taken probably about a $300,000 hit in our rest of the year because we’ve had to cancel our annual gala which tends to be our largest fundraiser,” Martinet said. “We’ve also lost a couple of foundations. One of the foundations that has been a stalwart in supporting our work cut the amount of dollars they gave us this year mainly because of the financial market.”

Martinet said they need about $100,000 each month to stay afloat. As soon as he heard about the PPP loan, Martinet immediately applied.

“When I first heard about this funding available, I was elated by the fact that we could cover our payroll hopefully for about two months,” Martinet said.

About two weeks later, Martinet has still yet to receive anything. The Small Business Administrator reports that only 3% of the 3.7 million small businesses in California have received any money. 

Martinet said the last he heard, his bank confirmed all funds have been exhausted but said his early submission date may help his nonprofit gain something. 

“Hoping that this epidemic is over. I think we have found new ways of delivering our service, I think through tragedy there’s something to be gained,” Martinet said. “Hopeful that this system will work for us.”

The new bill that would grant another $310 billion to PPP loans holds new provisions to ensure bigger businesses don’t find loopholes to take advantage of the program so that smaller organizations can get their money. 

As of Thursday morning, Martinet still hadn’t received any PPP loans but did get about $10,000 from the SBA emergency grants, which was also a part of that $2 trillion stimulus package. He said he hopes to fare better in this round.

Big Brothers Big Sisters primarily helps children from lower-income families; 98% of the kids have free and reduced lunches and about 90% of the kids they mentor go onto college or trade school.