Community Development Lenders Push for Larger Role in Virus Aid

Archana Pokhrel, owner of Lenox Spa and Nails in Manhattan, doesn’t know when customers will return for the hands-on beauty treatments that stopped when the Covid-19 pandemic struck earlier this year.

Appointments at her four-year old salon dropped in February and her business took a severe downturn in March so she went straight to her bank, Santander, when the federal Paycheck Protection Program launched in April.

But after weeks of waiting without a response, Pokhrel, an immigrant from Nepal, turned to the Business Center for New Americans, a community development financial institution (CDFI) that gave her a loan in 2018 ...