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Wednesday night’s City Plan Commission virtual meeting.
New Haven has landed over $3.5 million in federal emergency relief to cover a variety of Covid-19 related costs — including for homelessness prevention services, testing site construction and maintenance, and the delivery of meals to individuals in need.
That federal aid comes as part of the special allocation the city has received through the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) that was passed by Congress and signed into law by the president on March 27.
This particular allocation totals $3,535,146: over $2.2 million in Community Development Block Grant Coronavirus (CDBG-CV) funds; over $1.1 million in Emergency Solutions Grants Coronavirus (ESG-CV) funds; and over $160,000 of Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS Coronavirus (HOPWA-CV) funds.
During Wednesday night’s regular monthly City Plan Commission meeting, which was held online via Zoom, commissioners voted unanimously in support of recommending that the Board of Alders formally accept this federal aid.
An April 2 letter from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Acting Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development Josh Gibbs to Mayor Justin Elicker states that the CARES Act made available $5 billion CDBG-CV funds in total. Of this amount, HUD immediately allocated $2 billion based on the Fiscal Year 2020 CDBG formula, and will allocate the remaining $3 billion based on need.
A CARES Act funding summary from the city finance department and a proposed order submitted by the city to the Board of Alders describes in detail how this money can be spent.
“Funds may be used to cover or reimburse allowable costs incurred before the award including costs prior to the signing of the CARES Act to prevent, prepare for, and respond to COVID-19,” the summary reads. “Funds cannot supplant lost revenue of the municipality.”
The summary lists eligible CDBG-CV activities as:
• Construct or rehabilitate a facility for testing, diagnosis, or treatment;
• Acquire and rehabilitate, or construct, a group living facility to centralize patients undergoing treatment;
• Acquire, and quickly rehabilitate a motel or hotel to expand capacity of hospitals;
• Make interim improvements to private properties for quarantine;
• Provide grants or loans to support new businesses or business expansion to create jobs and manufacture medical supplies necessary to respond to infectious disease;
• Avoid job loss caused by business closures;
• Expand microenterprises that provide medical, food delivery, cleaning, and other services to support home health and quarantine;
• Provide testing, diagnosis or other services at a fixed or mobile location;
• Increase the capacity of targeted health services for infectious disease response within existing health facilities;
• Provide equipment, supplies, and materials necessary to carry-out a public service;
• Deliver meals to quarantined individuals or individuals that need to maintain social distancing;
• Program administration costs
It lists eligible ESG-CV activities as:
• Provide homelessness prevention assistance to very low-income individuals or families;
• Funds are not subject to the spending cap on emergency shelter and outreach
And it lists eligible HOPWA-CV activities as:
• Assisting HOPWA eligible households in accessing essential services and supplies (food, water, medications, medical care, and information);
• Educating assisted households on ways to reduce the risk of getting sick or spreading infectious diseases;
• Provide transportation services for eligible households to access medical care, supplies, and food;
• Providing nutrition in the form of food banks, groceries, and meal deliveries;
• Providing lodging at hotels, motels, or other locations for quarantine;
• Providing short-term rent, mortgage, and utility (STRMU) assistance for a period of up to 24 months.
Click here, here, here, and here to learn more.
Earlier this week, the city also found out that it had received over $515,000 in federal coronavirus-related aid from the Department of Justice.