In the first two months since the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) reopened offices in Sandy-damaged counties with fresh funding for low-interest Superstorm disaster loans, the agency has received in excess of 500 applications, and approved 139, for about $5,600,000.

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The program continues through December 2016.

"We're...encouraging people to apply, especially if they did not apply for SBA disaster assistance," said SBA's Richard Daigle.

"Even though it's more than three years ago, maybe they didn't apply at that time. This $5,000,000 milestone shows many people are taking advantage of it now. We want to encourage others to apply if they've got losses from Sandy that weren't covered by insurance," or if a gap still exists after previous grants and insurance payouts have been spent.

Daigle said that the initial round saw approvals for loans totalling more than $800,000,000 in New Jersey. The 139 new approvals, he pointed out, aren't a full indication of how many will be okayed. "Many are being processed in our center in Texas," he said.

Federal funds provide the capital and SBA manages the arrangements. A homeowner can qualify for up to $240,000, at interest rates as low as 1.69 percent. A renter can access as much as $40,000 and businesses can qualify for as much as $2,000,000 each, at four percent interest.

"We look at things such as their income, their debts, their credit score...a lot of the same factors that a bank would look at," Daigle said, adding that the anticipated ability to repay the loans is a significant factor.

"Maybe they applied [in the first round] and the SBA didn't approve them," Daigle said, "and now they find that their financial condition has changed. So it's a second chance."

Applications are available at the SBA web page, and at the reopened outreach centers. Ocean County's office is in the Emergency Operations Center at Ocean County Airport (Robert J. Miller Airpark) in Berkeley Township. Monmouth's is in that county's Emergency Operations Center on Halls Mill Road, Freehold. The Atlantic County office is in the Atlantic City municipal complex on Bacharach Boulevard.

Information by phone is available at 1-800-659-2955.

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