Bloomington's Small Business Assistance Grant Program has closed out, and the numbers show how narrow the relief was: 195 businesses applied, but only 25 were ultimately funded, city staff told the Port Authority.
Staff 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.
The Port Authority Commission created the program in February, pledging up to $400,000 in one-time grants of up to $10,000 each to cover roughly two months' rent or mortgage for businesses that could show a 30% revenue loss between December 2025 and March 2026 — the stretch when Operation Metro Surge, the federal immigration enforcement operation that began in December, hit foot traffic across the metro. Eligible businesses needed a brick-and-mortar location in Bloomington, 50 or fewer employees, and at least six months in operation before the surge began.
Applications opened Feb. 24 and were reviewed on a rolling, first-completed basis until the April 20 deadline or until money ran out. One business owner told a reporter that a typical $10,000 weekend dropped to barely $200 during the worst stretch, with days that saw not one customer walk through the door.
The gap between 195 applications and 25 grants points to how many businesses either didn't meet the strict eligibility bar — the revenue-loss threshold, the brick-and-mortar and employee-count rules — or ran into the first-completed, first-funded process before the pool of money was spent.
Operation Metro Surge itself wound down earlier this year, with federal officials announcing a drawdown of enforcement activity in the Twin Cities metro. Bloomington had joined a coalition of Minnesota cities pushing back on the operation, and this grant program was the city's own stopgap while that pressure campaign played out.