SBA establishes Center for Faith, reverses ban on religious orgs. receiving disaster relief

The Small Business Administration has established a Center for Faith and will repeal policies utilized during the Biden administration that prevented faith organizations from receiving disaster relief loans from the federal government. 

The SBA announced in a statement Monday the creation of the Center for Faith to "empower faith-based businesses, community organizations, and houses of worship with access to capital, counselling, and government contracting opportunities."

The Center for Faith is led by Janna Bowman, who serves as director of faith outreach for the executive branch agency. 

"We are thrilled to announce our first-ever Center for Faith at the SBA to improve access to agency resources for the faith community, ensuring that all SBA programs are accessible to eligible Americans regardless of their religious affiliation," SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said in a statement.

"We are proud to uphold the principles of religious freedom that our nation was founded on — and look forward to forging lasting relationships that bring new small businesses into the SBA ecosystem."

The SBA will also rescind a regulation maintained by the Biden administration that prohibited any entity "principally engaged in teaching, instructing, counseling, or indoctrinating religion" from applying for Economic Injury Disaster Loans.

Economic Injury Disaster Loans are available to small businesses and nonprofit organizations located in a declared disaster area that find themselves unable to meet their financial obligations and pay regular and necessary operating expenses. The loans are only available to businesses that the SBA determines are unable to obtain financial assistance elsewhere. 

The SBA, under the Trump administration, maintains that the Biden-era regulation is unconstitutional in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2017 decisionTrinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer. The court ruled that the refusal of a Missouri state agency to reimburse a church for participating in a state program encouraging the use of recycled tires for playground surfaces, while offering the benefit to similar secular organizations, ran afoul of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 

Loeffler vowed that the agency is "committed to ending the era of weaponized government that has systematically discriminated against Americans of faith — even denying them access to vital disaster relief in times of tragedy."

The agency stressed that "Effective immediately, faith-related organizations are now eligible for agency disaster relief in the aftermath of tragedy." 

The SBA is not the only executive branch agency to establish a Center for Faith following President Donald Trump's Feb. 7 executive order establishing the White House Faith Office and encouraging partnerships between the federal government, faith-based entities, houses of worship and community organizations. 

Other executive branch agencies that have launched centers for faith include the Corporation for National and Community Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.