The County of Riverside has set aside $1 million of ARPA funds (America Rescue Plan Act) for direct assistance to eligible non-profits in the county. A virtual briefing was held about the federal funding grant and how it would be disbursed to eligible non-profits.

Who Gets the Funding?

The funding is meant for eligible nonprofits that provide direct relief services to communities disproportionally impacted by the pandemic. The County of Riverside held a virtual Zoom meeting to share details about the program.

You can get more details about the program by getting in touch with Jen Kammerer at [email protected].

$42B of Funding To California State

Termed as “the largest economic stimulus bill ever passed by Congress”, the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) is meant to provide $26 billion in fiscal recovery funds to the state and $16 billion to counties and cities with a population over 50,000. 

There’s an incentive to utilize these funds at the state level in a timely manner as funds are only available until Dec. 31, 2024. 

Per data shared by the California Legislative Analyst’s office, the funding breakdown is as follows:

• Emergency rental assistance to families to help pay rent and utilities: $2.2 billion
• To homeowners for mortgage payments; $1 billion
• Homelessness assistance including emergency housing vouchers: $1 billion i
• Childcare and Head Start providers: $3.9 billion
• To schools to resume in-person learning, addressing learning loss and other activities: $15.1 billion

You can access the complete snapshot of funding breakdown by visiting the link here.

ARPA and Families Making $90K Per Year

A Columbia University study found that passing the plan will lift more than 5 million children out of poverty this year reducing poverty by 50%. The White House shares that two thirds of its tax cuts and direct payments going to families making less than $90,000 per year.

It was in June this year that CalOSBA (or The California Office of the Small Business Advocate) announced three new funding rounds with $1.5 billion in grants under California’s pandemic relief grant program.

Apart from providing direct assistance to the needy, the state government has tried to divert part of the federal funding to support small business and entrepreneurial growth in the region. Under CalOSBA, the state government has launched many programs, tools, and initiatives including Innovation Hub (iHub) Program, Get Digital CA, and Source Diverse Source Local, a public-private collaboration to strengthen California-based supply chain.

The ARPA funds have been disbursed under several categories by the federal government. These include:

• Economic impact payments
• Child Tax Credit
• State and local fiscal recovery funds
• Capital projects fund
• Homeowner assistance fund
• Emergency rental assistance
• State small business credit initiative
• Unemployment compensation

Author: Sharjeel

Sharjeel joined Startempire Wire as emerging technologies editor. Earlier, he worked at Silicon Canals, a leading English language technology media source for the Benelux and wider Europe. He covered the European technology and startup ecosystem digging into latest funding rounds of startups.