COLUMBIA − The city of Columbia on Thursday released its recommendations for distribution of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding.
The Columbia City Council will vote Monday night on a resolution that will outline the council’s intent to award the $25.2 million in funding.
The first half of the funding is designated for homelessness, community violence, behavioral crisis care, mental health services, and workforce development.
The second half of the funding is targeted to priority areas identified by the community through a survey and focus groups. A full list of organizations to receive the funding and their intended use can be found here.
Council selected an additional five priority areas for funding consideration for the second half of the funding, which are access to services, affordable housing, mental health access, homelessness, as well as workforce development/support. Some of those selections by council overlap with selections from the public’s selections.
The following summarizes the funding recommendations by priority area:
- Access to services – $1.33 million
- Affordable housing – $8.6 million
- Community violence – $2.17 million
- Homelessness – $5.67 million
- Mental health – $3 million
- Workforce development – $2.5 million
- Workforce support – $1.32 million
- Capacity building – $750,000
Three million, six-hundred thousand dollars of the $25 million has already been awarded. The Columbia Housing Authority received $2 million for its Park Avenue Reconstruction project. Job Point, Moberly Area Community College, and Business Loop Community Improvement District (CID) all received parts of $1.6 million for workforce development programming.
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The Loop’s funds were used for the relocation of CoMo Cooks Kitchen. Carrie Gartner, executive director of the Community Improvement District, said those funds helped build the new kitchen after the original location was demolished at Mizzou North. CoMo Cooks received its ARPA money about a year ago.
“We just finished spending the bulk of it just a few months ago,” Gartner said.
When the new CoMo Cooks location opened back in March, it had about 20 clients. It’s added more since then.
“Without it, we never could have got this kitchen up and running without the ARPA funding and the city’s support,” Gartner said. “We really never could have helped the 30 small businesses that are now located here.”
Following council approval of the resolution, city staff will begin coordinating with the organizations to develop agreements. The city says it has budgeted $750,000 to develop a capacity building program to support and grow the capacity of local community organizations, as well as ARPA applicants.
All of the organizations that receive funds won’t get them immediately after the resolution passes, according to Sydney Olsen, spokesperson for the city.
“It will take some time because there are so many of them. And obviously, those negotiation processes do require some back-and-forth, but we don’t anticipate this to take a year by any means,” Olsen said. “We have a plan in place, and we’re ready to go and excited to get the money out the door.”
Council will meet at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 2 in the Council Chambers of City Hall to vote on the resolution.