Bloomington's Small Business Assistance Grant Program is finished. In their final report to the Port Authority, city staff said 195 businesses applied and 25 were funded. The fund had up to $400,000 available.
City of Bloomington@CityofBloomingtonMNStaff reported results of a Port Authority-funded (up to $400,000) emergency grant program launched after Operation Metro Surge disrupted small businesses starting in December.07/21
The total rose a little after the city's last update. As of June, the city said 22 businesses had received $172,000. Each grant was capped at $10,000 and paid for rent or mortgage costs.
The program started during the worst of the surge. The federal immigration enforcement operation began in December. The city didn't raise new money for the grants. It moved existing economic development funds into the program. Leslie Diaz, manager of Luro Boots, said a busy weekend at the store usually brought in $10,000, but sales fell to about $200 in January. "There were days when I was here all day by myself and there was not even one customer, not even one car in the parking lot," Diaz said. Mayor Tim Busse said applicants would have to "show the actual impacts of Metro Surge."
Qualifying was difficult. A business had to have a brick-and-mortar storefront in Bloomington that sold directly to the public, 50 or fewer full-time-equivalent employees, and at least 6 months in operation before Dec. 31, 2025. It also had to document a 30% drop in gross revenue from December 2025 through March 2026, compared with the same months a year earlier. Chains, franchises, home-based businesses and nonprofits were not eligible. Applications were open from Feb. 24 to April 20 and were processed in the order they were completed. NextStage, a Bloomington nonprofit, ran the program for the Port Authority.
Those rules help explain why 195 applications produced 25 grants.
By the time applications opened, the surge was already ending. White House border czar Tom Homan announced Feb. 12 that the operation would conclude and that a drawdown of federal agents was underway. Lost sales from the slow winter still had to be made up after the agents left.
The city has said it plans to publish stories from grant recipients in future issues of its Briefing newsletter.
From the meeting: Port Authority Meeting, July 21, 2026.
