Source: Here’s Hoping the MMT Crowd Is Correct – Bloomberg

In light of the coronavirus pandemic, many cities are experiencing lockdowns, business closures, and other economic consequences. Many small businesses are especially affected by these economic difficulties because of the current coronavirus pandemic. However, government and private organizations have acknowledged these difficulties and created disaster assistance programs for small businesses.

We have compiled a list of small business assistance programs in hopes that they will be a resource to small businesses during this trying time.

The Small Business Administration’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program will provide targeted, low-interest loans to small businesses and non-profits that have been severely impacted by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Businesses can apply online here. Applicants may also call SBA’s Customer Service Center at (800) 659-2955 or email disastercustomerservice@sba.gov for more information on SBA disaster assistance.

The Jewish Free Loan Association is also providing interest free loans to small businesses up to $36,000. Apply here.

Facebook Inc. has recently pledged $100 million in ad credits and cash grants for small businesses that have been impacted by the economic damage caused by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. More information can be found here.

PMI Properties is excited to announce that Imbellus, the company redesigning education standardized tests, has moved into a 8,700 square foot office space at 8673 Hayden Place. This creative office space with 22 foot high glulam beam ceilings and skylights  is located in the Hayden Tract in Culver City and is situated in between corporate offices for both Nordstrom and Beats Electronics and soon near HBO and Amazon. James Wilson and Dave Wilson of Lee & Associates West represented the landlord, and Michael Nieman of Savills Inc. represented the tenant for the four year lease.

Imbellus is redesigning standardized tests to be more cognitive based and less knowledge based. These tests would evaluate the applicants problem solving and learning ability and have less emphasis on the applicant’s prior education. If successful, the test could be a substitute for the current SAT tests.

This office space at Hayden offers tenants prime access to all of Culver City and even Culver City Park.

Michael Weinstein, the backer of proposition 10 and the new upcoming proposition to introduce radical rent control, bought through his Aids Foundation apartments in downtown Los Angeles and has run into problems.  He is learning it is not that easy to be a landlord. He should not be the one designing our rental housing laws.

Source: Homeless housing tenants say AIDS Healthcare is ‘slumlord’ – Los Angeles Times

The ability to create tools to allow more remote work and a distributed workforce can radically  help lower housing costs.  Just think if you could live in Tucson but work in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, or Los Angeles or New York .  Three trends work against remote work and a distributed work force:

1.  Agglomeration Economies:  the efficiency gained from an industry coalescing into a few locations.  Employees go where the workers are, and the workers go where the employees are.  Dense infrastructures form to support the specialized industry. Think San Francisco/Silicon Valley for technology, Los Angeles for entertainment, and New York for finance.
2.  Non-digital collaboration:  the belief that in person collaboration is stronger than digital collaboration.
3. The movement of millennials into the large urban areas.

Now the cost of these trends have reached a point for business leaders to explore alternative strategies.The current Coronavirus outbreak is also causing businesses and institutions to explore and innovate digital and remote work, and this exploration could lead to wider adaption in the future.

The article below discusses how San Francisco firms are exploring such alternatives.  The above trends have caused housing costs in these urban centers to explode.  Technologies that advance remote work and a distributed work force can put people where housing costs are much less.

Source: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey San Francisco comments a warning sign