SBA Reaffirms Open Reinstatement Policy For Cancelled Gulf Coast Borrowers

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today the U.S. SmallBusiness Administration reaffirmed that borrowers impacted by HurricanesKatrina, Rita or Wilma whose loans were cancelled may request reinstatementuntil January 31, 2008. "SBA is continuing to work hard for the Gulf Coast's recovery," SBAAdministrator Steven Preston said. "As part of the agency's effort, we'vetaken extraordinary steps to ensure disaster loans are available to alleligible borrowers, two years later." SBA has attempted to get in touch with all borrowers whose loans werecancelled last fall without prior contact by the agency, and will continueits outreach. The agency encourages Katrina, Rita and Wilma borrowers whoseloans have been cancelled to contact SBA's Customer Service Center if theywould like the loan to be reinstated. Interested borrowers may need to update their file data with newtelephone numbers and, in some cases, new addresses. Financial informationmay need to be updated as well. SBA's Disaster Assistance Customer Service Center is open Mondaythrough Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. (E.D.T.). The toll free numberis 800-659-2955 or you can email SBA at Disastercustomerservice@sba.gov. In addition to the loan reinstatement policy, SBA has made a series ofextraordinary changes to its Disaster Assistance loan program in the pastyear. Since last summer, the agency has completely reengineered the programusing private sector operational techniques to eliminate backlogs,dramatically reduce response time, and improve support to disaster victimsthroughout the process. Individual case managers were assigned to everyborrower to help them navigate the process and SBA assigned staff to workin clerks' offices in Louisiana to help borrowers find needed documents. As a result, SBA reduced the backlog of approved loans in the systemfrom 120,000 one year ago to 10,628 today. All but 992 of those applicantshave received at least some of their disaster loan money. Currently, $5.9billion of $6.9 billion in approved SBA disaster loans is at work helping118,000 Gulf families rebuild their lives, businesses and communities.