On Your Side: Post-pandemic small-business recovery

Small businesses are still recovering from the pandemic shutdown more than three years later. Here's how one local business is determined to hang on -- and where small businesses can go for help.

More than a third of small businesses said they couldn't pay their rent when surveyed by the Federal Reserve in October 2022. Experts say more must be done to help them recover from the pandemic, and now inflation.

For more than a year, Clarisa Ru had to shut down her yoga studio, Green Heart in San Marino.

"We lost 80 percent of our business," said Ru.

And she laid off almost all of her staff. Now, three years later, she is finally back to where she left off.

"Our numbers are finally at pre-Covid numbers, and starting since November/December, it looks like we're just going to keep growing," said Ru.

But in order to keep afloat, with inflation and increased labor costs, Ru had to change her business model with the help of a business coach.

"And her coaching me into raising prices, offering less -- but an 'enriched less,'" said Ru.

Her lowest priced membership is now 30 percent more than it was before the shutdown.

Across California, small-business owners are having to adapt in order to stay profitable in the post-pandemic world.

The CEO of CAMEO (California Association for Micro Enterprise Opportunity), a statewide micro-business network, says California must continue to expand investment to keep small businesses alive. Ninety-four percent of businesses in Los Angeles County have fewer than 20 employees.

"We know that the percentages of businesses with less than $100,000 in revenue that received full financing sought from banks or other lenders in 2022 had dropped by 36 percent compared with 2019," said CAMEO CEO Carolina Martinez.

Businesses owned by people of color are disproportionately affected.

Full funding approvals are down for Black-owned business by 41 percent; down 28 percent for Asian-owned; down 17 percent for Latino-owned; and down 12 percent for White-owned businesses, according to the Federal Reserve.

L.A. County's Economic Opportunity Grant Program for small businesses is still open. Businesses can get up to $20,000.