MAITLAND, Fla. — The head of the U.S. Small Business Administration, Jovita Carranza, was in Central Florida on Thursday to visit businesses that have been able to survive during the pandemic thanks to the Paycheck Protection Program.  But not all businesses who’ve received PPP loans have fared so well, and Carranza said she’s urging Congress to pass more relief.

Maitland-based Genesis Water Technologies designs systems to provide clean water in areas where it’s not available — anywhere from a campground to remote areas of foreign countries where a lack of infrastructure makes clean water hard to find.  When the pandemic hit, everything slowed down at GWT, forcing the locally-owned company to make some tough decisions.

“Our entire manufacturing process has had to change because of social distancing,” said Leonard Abraham, a spokesperson for GWT. “Incoming inspections, cleaning down equipment because we don’t know if our suppliers are meeting the same requirements.”

The company got a PPP loan from the federal government and Abraham said that money allowed the company to keep more than half of its 200 employees and continue work on a new product line that was underway before the pandemic began.

“What we did is took some of the resources and instead of letting them go, we said, 'Here, work on this project and probably in the next month or so we’re going to see some of our new products coming out,'” said Abraham.

But not all businesses that got PPP loans are doing so well. 

Spectrum News first talked with Julie Casey, an owner of The Outpost, back in April. That’s when Casey got approved for a PPP loan for her then College Park restaurant.  She said the nearly $40,000 loan was enough to pay employees for a couple of months, but that was it.  She had to close the once successful restaurant by the end of June because business never fully returned to pre-pandemic levels.  And she hasn’t been able to open a new location that was already under construction in Maitland.

Carranza said she’s urging Congress to approve more funding for the PPP program. She stopped in Maitland to visit GWT in a tour of some of the businesses that received PPP loans.

“I’m trying to get a package that will apply those $130 billion back into the small business sector, as well as add additional funds,” said Carranza. “So we’re anxious, we’re all anxious to see that resolved because small businesses are in need of another lifeline.”

SBA officials said just in Florida PPP loans have been administered to more than 430,000 small businesses totaling more than $53 billion in loans.​