(Boston) Low-income entrepreneurs welcome added assistance

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http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/10/11/resources-expand-for-low-income-entrepreneurs/HP3g9wMbTZUMVWXTogKaHO/story.html



Tiffany White hopes to hire as many as six employees for a natural skin and nail care studio scheduled to open in Hyde Park in November.

Low-income entrepreneurs welcome added assistance
By Katie Johnston Globe Staff October 12, 2015

For a decade, Tiffany White worked as an executive assistant in Dorchester, living paycheck to paycheck to support herself and her son. But now she is on the other side of the corporate divide, the owner of a new business looking to hire as many as six employees for a natural skin and nail care studio scheduled to open in Hyde Park in November.

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The nonprofit microlender Grameen America has loaned more than $2.3 million to nearly 1,000 women since it opened a branch in Boston last year. A new business division of Northeast Legal Aid has given free legal assistance to more than 40 entrepreneurs in Lynn and Lawrence in the past year. And in Boston neighborhoods such as Uphams Corner, Dudley Square, and Grove Hall, several business incubators have recently opened their doors.

The city of Boston is also providing more assistance for cash-strapped entrepreneurs, employing a Harvard fellow to identify the challenges facing immigrant business owners and doubling funding for the free consulting services it provides to small-business owners, the majority of them minority owned.

“If you are ever going to deal successfully with income inequality and economic immobility, if you’re ever going to create a more level playing field for people who lack capital, who lack resources, who lack training, then entrepreneurship is a good place to put resources to work,” said Steve Grossman, chief executive at Initiative for a Competitive Inner City , a nonprofit research organization in Boston.