Job training, public safety, internet access — here’s what COVID relief money is buying
When the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a widespread shutdown of local businesses and charities two years ago, Liza Riedel worried she would have to permanently close NextStep Orlando, a nonprofit spinal cord injury recovery center she founded that helps paralyzed individuals.
“We were shut down for a while, and our clients were not able to do the therapy and socialize,” she said this week. “They were bedridden. They were begging me to open up. But we couldn’t risk them contracting COVID. [The virus is] a dangerous situation for someone who is paralyzed.”
Her Altamonte Springs-based organization survived, due in part to $25,000 in federal funds NextStep Orlando received through Seminole County from the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA.
“It saved us,” Riedel said, noting the funds will be used to recoup the costs of buying cleaning supplies to disinfect equipment and placing partitions to distance her clients receiving therapies.
Local governments across Central Florida will pull in about $868 million from ARPA, which can be spent in a broad manner related to the pandemic — including replacing lost revenues due to the economic shutdown; paying for community redevel
opment and infrastructure projects; helping small businesses and nonprofits; providing mortgage assistance to individuals struggling financially; and expanding broadband access in rural communities.
The $1.9 trillion federal relief bill was signed into law by President Joe Biden in March 2021. The first half of the money was distributed to local governments last year. The second half is expected to hit government accounts this summer. Orange County is slated to receive about $271 million; Seminole, nearly $92 million; Osceola, nearly $73 million; Lake, $71 million; and the city of Orlando, $58 million. Local governments have until 2024 to allocate the funds.
The spending plans local governments have put together are long and varied — including job training and violence-prevention programs in Orlando, expanding broadband access for underserved areas in Lake County, and building a new stage in Winter Park’s popular Central Park.
Relief for Midway
In Seminole, for example, county officials directed $10 million in ARPA funds toward stormwater improvements in the Midway community, a low-income, historic Black neighborhood near Sanford where properties often flood after heavy rains because of decadeslong neglect by the county.
The $22-million infrastructure project — which is also being paid for with the county’s sales tax revenue — is currently in the design phases and should be completed in three years, officials said.
“It is definitely good news,” said Emory Green Jr., a longtime Midway resident, who along with his neighbors has pleaded with Seminole officials to upgrade Midway’s stormwater system. The county is also using $1 million in ARPA funds to build a trail in Midway.
Commissioner Andria Herr, whose district includes the Midway community, said the federal funds allowed the county to move forward with the infrastructure improvements.
“The fact that ARPA came into play gave us this opportunity to fast-pace projects that we had slated for some time,” she said.
Seminole’s other ARPA allocations include $9 million for the Sheriff ’s Office Holistic Behavioral Health program that helps those affected by a mental health crisis; $4.5 million to fill in gaps in broadband access; $4 million to help individuals financially impacted by the pandemic pay their rent, utilities or mortgages; and $400,000 for nonprofit organizations.
Orange County last summer allocated the first half of its ARPA funds to help small businesses and nonprofits working on homelessness and food scarcity; build a new fire station; and cover costs associated with operating the county’s three COVID-19 testing sites and vaccination efforts at Barnett Park.
Orange officials expect to update a plan with the second half of funding allocations this summer during budgeting, said Kelly Finkelstein, a county spokesperson.
Free tuition
Earlier this year, Osceola announced plans for a more-than$12-million scholarship program to allow every graduating senior this year to receive free college or technical education at Valencia College or Osceola Technical College. The program, called Osceola Prosper, covers tuition and fees through graduation. Students who have a “significant financial need” can receive an additional $500 stipend, according to the program requirements.
Osceola also committed $1.9 million to Experience Kissimmee, the tourism marketing agency, said Chris Brumbaugh, a county spokesperson.
In Orlando, only a fraction of ARPA funds have been programmed so far, with about $4 million going initiatives to prevent gun violence and a job training program for people unemployed or underemployed due to COVID-19.
While Orlando hasn’t revealed specific programs for the bulk of the funds, Mayor Buddy Dyer said the city plans to commit most of the remaining dollars toward two hard-to-crack issues: housing and homelessness.
“Probably, I’d say the bulk of the money… will be going into those areas,” Dyer said at a roundtable last month promoting the RISE jobs program, which included a deputy secretary of the U.S. Treasury.
Specifics about the housing and homelessness programs aren’t likely to be announced until later this summer, said Samantha Holsten, a city spokesperson.
The RISE program is a partnership with CareerSource Central Florida and provides access to job training programs in industries like advanced manufacturing, construction, health care and IT. Tuition is covered by another federal pot of money and participants also can receive a $125weekly stipend toward child care, food and housing.
Funding is expected to help about 500 residents, specifically targeting neighborhoods home to high percentages of Black and Hispanic residents in Orlando.
Communities face pandemic fallout
The allocations of funds are receiving federal oversight. Wally Adeyemo, the deputy Treasury secretary, was touring the nation to review how local governments were spending the federal relief dollars. He pointed out that Orlando’s workforce program was unique in how it brought together CareerSource and Valencia College to target communities especially impacted by the pandemic.
“There are so many people in our communities, especially in our most marginalized communities, who are still looking for jobs and need not just the training, but need the wraparound services you’re thinking about doing,” Adeyemo said.
The gun-violence prevention program involves a weekly review of all shootings and uses “neighborhood change agents” to contact those who are considered most likely to be shot or shoot others. The intent is to communicate the risk of retaliation and prevent future crimes, city officials said.
Todd Dixon, director of development and community affairs for Aspire Health Partners, a nonprofit that provides mental-health and substance-abuse treatment, said the $25,000 in ARPA funds from Seminole will “be very helpful to meet the growing needs of a community of our size.”
Specifically, he said, the funds will help since Florida did not expand Medicaid under Obamacare. His organization is also facing inflation and competition in hiring talented employees.
“Since the pandemic, our crisis services have remained at capacity,” Dixon said. “We’re using the funds to provide crisis stabilization for individuals who are in a mental health crisis... related to COVID. It may be grief over the loss of a loved one. It could be anxiety over contracting the virus. It could be financial anxiety over finances, such as a job loss.”
Bob Kealing, a spokesperson for the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office, said skyrocketing cases of addictions, such as opioid abuse, and mental health crises “like never before” have been the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.
For its Holistic Behavioral Health Program, the agency plans to partner with medical and behavioral health service providers to build a facility — either outpatient or residential — that would help individuals experiencing a mental health crisis to find care. That would help reduce the number of people detained under Florida’s Baker Act, which allows law enforcement to temporarily commit a person who poses a threat to themselves or others because of mental illness.
Like Riedel’s organization, Lighthouse Central Florida — which helps blind and visually-impaired individuals — also had to shut down intermittently during the pandemic. It plans to use the $25,000 in ARPA funds it received from Seminole to pay for cleaning supplies and the classes and consultations it offered clients via Zoom, Skype and other teleconferencing platforms.
The organization, with about 800 clients, works with parents and caregivers of people with visual impairments.
“It was truly beneficial, and we can’t calculate the full impact those funds will have because it is immeasurable,” said Kyle Johnson, president and chief executive officer of Lighthouse. “If you are born blind or become visually impaired, we are the only provider [in Central Florida] in rehabilitation and training and education.”