PORTLAND, Maine — As Maine confronts the reality of an aging workforce, a program in Portland seeks to empower immigrants to help take the reins of the state’s economic future.
The Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center is finding success in providing guidance and support for immigrant business-owners—assisting them in everything from drafting a business plan to seeking low-interest loans to launch.
“We help them by meeting them where they are. The requirement is that you’re an immigrant and you’re entrepreneurial in spirit,” Stella Hernandez, the center’s business hub director, explained.
Hernandez has been busy. She estimates she has connected with about 50 entrepreneurs in the last year or so.
“There are clients I end up working with once a week for months, and others who are just looking for a few resources or a quick answer," Hernandez added.
One of those business owners is Feliks Cobanovic, who moved from Bosnia and Herzegovina as a kid after the Yugoslav War.
“After the war, everything was destroyed. The economy was in ruins,” Cobanovic said.
Now, decades later, he owns two businesses: Empire Cleaning and a new self-service food mart in an office building in South Portland called Fed Foods. Taking advantage of thousands of loans has also helped him earn a new title: employer.
“It means a lot to be able to provide somebody an income,” Cobanovic said.
This type of immigrant-powered economic growth is everywhere. A 2019 study from New American Economy found that while immigrants make up 13.6% of the U.S. population, the demographic accounts for 21.7% of business owners.
State leaders are hoping this immigrant population will serve as one key ingredient in the future of Maine’s economy.
“They will be our long [term] investment,” Tarlan Ahmadov, who directs a division within the Maine Department of Labor, said Friday. “New Mainers are playing a huge role in this workforce, and we are seeing this every single day.”