The Sacramento City Council last night completed the final significant allocation of the $89 million in CARES Act funding it received from the federal government. The funding is being used for programs targeted at helping residents, businesses and organizations affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’m proud that our City has put its $89 million federal stimulus check back out to work in our community by providing relief to small businesses, support to the arts, culture and tourism, funding to house the homeless and training for our young people and adults,” said Mayor Darrell Steinberg. “This was money well spent both to mitigate the short-term pain caused by the COVID and to put us in a position to regain our momentum once we fully reopen.”
“This pandemic is unprecedented and has created a wide-range of issues for our residents and businesses,” said City Manager Howard Chan. “City staff were able to quickly rise to the occasion and have been working tirelessly to put together programs that will provide much needed aid to our communities.”
The City Council in May approved the basic framework for CARES Act spending laid out by Mayor Steinberg, which includes $20 million for small business recovery and assistance, $20 million for youth and workforce training, $20 million for affordable housing and homelessness and $20 million to bolster the creative economy.
The City is funding and operating several projects to help those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, including the Small Business Recovery program to provide forgivable loans and technical assistance to local businesses; Workforce Recovery program to provide workforce training to 11,000 Sacramentans; Creative Economy Recovery grants to help arts and culture organizations; #SacYouthWorks, which is a new summer jobs program that puts teens to work; and Great Plates Delivered, which provides three meals a day to seniors.
City Council last night approved adding an additional $6.9 million in Creative Economy Recovery grant funding, a $5.4 million grant for Visit Sacramento and $1.46 in Small Business Recovery technical assistance. City Council will be reviewing and allocating the remaining $1.29 million in funds in the coming weeks.
Stay up to date with the City’s Coronavirus CARES spending at cityofsacramento.org/cares. The deadline for expending these funds is Dec. 30, 2020.
Below is a chart of how all the CARES Act funding is being distributed:
