Are you having trouble getting approved for a Small Business Administration economic emergency loan?
You’re not alone, a prominent Enumclaw business owner says.
According to Tom Sauvageau — who owns The Kettle, the Runlands grocery store, the Bordeaux Wine Bar, and is a partial owner in two other food-related business and one hospitality business, started and owns a chief financial officer consulting firms, and is a current Enumclaw council member — trying to get a Economic Injury Disaster Loan requires much more patience than you may expect.
In fact, he claims “to date, no local Enumclaw of Buckley businesses has received any finds from the SBA EIDL disaster loan program,” due to his experience attempting to get a loan himself, he said in an email to Gov. Bob Ferguson’s South Sound regional outreach manager and The Courier-Herald.
The Courier-Herald was unable to reach the SBA’s Seattle office, despite multiple attempts, to ask questions about EIDLs that have been approved or denied on the Plateau and why the process appears to be more difficult than advertised.
Sauvageau has submitted eight EIDL applications after Ferguson declared the White River bridge closure an emergency and secured SBA loans for businesses on Sept. 19, and all of them have been denied multiple times for seemingly arbitrary reasons.
He used Enumclaw’s iconic breakfast business, The Kettle, as an example of how difficult the loan process has been so far after the White River bridge closed.
According to Sauvageau, he first applied for a loan on Sept. 22, and it was denied on Sept. 26; a letter from the SBA said he was denied due to “economic injury is not substantiated.”
“That’s just a ridiculous statement whatsoever,” Sauvageau said, as his application included documentation showing that The Kettle suffered a 26% percent reduction in sales on average (for a total of about $70,000) during the seven weeks after the bridge was closed on Aug. 18 due to a vac truck critically damaging the bridge.
Sauvageau requested his application be reevaluated on Sept. 28 and provided the exact same documentation as he gave the SBA in his original application.
The SBA got back to him on Sept. 29, saying his loan was approved — but then denied the loan on Oct. 16, claiming that his 2024 taxes were not on record with the IRS.
Saugaveau again requested a reevaluation the same day, and again provided the original documentation.
The SBA denied the application for the third time on Oct. 21, claiming this time that his personal taxes were filed but the IRS has not processed his 2024 taxes. A request for the IRS to do so, Sauvageau said, would take more than a month, due to his multiple business interests.
Saugaveau reapplied that day; on Oct. 22, he said the SBA contacted him and requested supplemental documentation to move forward with the application.
“This is the first person… under the exact same circumstances that said, ‘Yeah, we can move forward with this,’” he said. “I’m not approved yet… [and] who knows what else they might come up with. I don’t know if I’ll be approved, but at least this step, I’ll get through.”
At this time, it’s been four weeks since Sauvageau first applied for a loan for The Kettle and seven other businesses (which were denied for the same reasons), and two months since the bridge closed — which is fine for him, given his multiple revenue services, he said, but could be devastating for small businesses.
“$70,000 for somebody who relies on just that business by itself, that’s a punch in the gut,” Sauvageau said. “I’m lucky enough that I built up enough worth that if I go through something like this, I can live off of savings for a while.”
Sauvageau is confident that his applications will eventually be approved — the ones he submitted after the bomb cyclone were, after a period of time — and said that the loan is still worth the frustration.
“At the minimum, even though it’s a loan, it’s a very good low interest, deferred payment, deferred interest option to keep businesses around,” he said.
With that in mind, Sauvageau hopes that other local business owners learn from his experience and continue to apply for an EIDL, despite the difficulties — and even get word out to the SBA that their EIDL process is far too cumbersome for the average small business owner.
“You’re the SBA. You’re meant to help businesses, especially in a disaster-type program” he said. “It’s really not set up the way it should be. If it’s a disaster, it should be expedited. It shouldn’t be so arduous to get through the process.”
Businesses can still apply for EIDLs at the MySBA Loan Portal. For further information, impacted businesses can contact the SBA disaster assistance customer service center by email at disastercustomerservice@sba.
