The Manhattan Times

Women’s chamber of commerce opens local office

by Adam Garrett-Clark

In the arena of hair styling few rival the expertise of Albania Perez, owner of Centro De Belleza Albania, who’s been working with hair since grade school.

“La llevo en mi sangre [doing hair is in my blood],” she says.

Over 10 years, her store on Broadway near W. 204th Street has earned a certain level of notoriety, evidenced by the signed photographs on her wall.

But when she fell behind on her rising rent, which included elevated real estate taxes, an eviction notice threatened to end her business.

Enter the New York Women’s Chamber of Commerce.

On Oct. 19, the NYWCC based in East Harlem opened a Northern Manhattan office at the Inwood Center on Broadway and W. 213th Street.

According to its president, Quenia Abreu, the citywide chamber designed to support women and minority entrepreneurs opened the office to better serve Latino owned businesses exactly like Perez’.

Beauty salons, largely female owned and heavily concentrated in Northern Manhattan, have historically been hard to reach for the seven-year-old nonprofit, Abreu said. But economic pressures are driving more and more owners to seek assistance.

The closely-knit beauty salon industry is hurting. Abreu said that while owners may be experts in their craft, they are not necessarily equipped to deal with the obstacles of running a business.

Many owners don’t have basic computer skills, she said. They may need legal help and translation services to negotiate with landlords. They lack the business skills needed to reduce overhead in a tight economy or apply for a loan to expand.

Perez said she has watched friends go out of business, unable to navigate through the current economic landscape.

“They are always at a risk of closing their business,” Abreu said. “We are there to support them.”

In May under the umbrella of the NYWCC, the Latin Association of Beauty Professionals was created. With nearly 200 members primarily from Northern Manhattan, the group was designed to give a voice to the underserved industry. Abreu also plans to use the association to bargain for health insurance and retirement packages for business owners and their employees.

The Chamber of Commerce has also taken its normal educational workshops and tweaked them to fit the beauty industry.

Perez, who is the vice president of the new association, was the impetus for the decision to open a Northern Manhattan office, Abreu said.

Having an office that was willing to get involved in her problems and speak her language made all the difference, she said, and she urged them to open in Northern Manhattan to be closer to businesses with similar problems.

Perez said she visited other local business assistance programs but didn’t receive the help she wanted.

“No hay nadie que defiende [there was no one to help defend us],” she said.

With a lawyer through the NYWCC, Perez was able to mediate with her landlord, avoid eviction and set up a payment plan. With the help of a translator, she is currently renegotiating her lease. And with a counselor she set up a financial plan to eventually expand into the basement of her store. This was all for the cost of a membership, Perez said. 

“Yo no entendi muchas cosas [I didn’t understand a lot of things],” she said, but she’s learning.

The official opening of the uptown office on Oct. 19 marked the graduation of 12 uptown business owners from a month-long basic computer skills course. The center equipped with a computer lab will focus on educational workshops for business owners taught primarily in Spanish and open to both members and non-members of the chamber.

The organization also has incubation programs for new businesses in its locations on Amsterdam Avenue and W.135th Street and on W. 157th Street.

Startup small businesses are given office space at reduced rent in the chamber’s facilities allowing for back office support – fax machine and phones and Internet. They are also allowed to participate in workshops as they begin their business. Currently, a real estate broker, import and exporter, graphic artist, leatherworker, and handbag manufacturer are incubating in the chamber’s offices.

To lend her support to the struggling beauty salons of Northern Manhattan, local Grammy-winning merengue singer Milly Quezada, who is also a frequent customer at Centro De Belleza Albania, has agreed to be the face of the new Latin Association of Beauty Professionals.

On Jan 29, 2010 she will perform a concert at City College to help raise money for the association. Ticket sales will go to a loan fund for beauty parlors. Abreu expects that once the fund is started they can leverage other corporations in the beauty industry to donate into the fund.