Locked out of a PPP loan, one woman sold her wedding ring to keep her business afloat

Even before the pandemic, Ashlie Ordonez had made sacrifices to open her beauty salon. She and her husband sold their house to raise the capital to pay for the lease and other costs related to starting the business, which opened its doors in Denver in March 2020.

Opening her salon turned out to be just the beginning of Ordonez's struggles. The pandemic forced her to close the business temporarily. And when she applied for a loan through the Paycheck Protection Program — a relief effort to help small businesses like hers — she was turned down. "They said my business didn't suffer an economic disaster," Ordonez recalled. "Which doesn't make sense, because I was forced to close immediately."