EVERETT — Snohomish County will pump one other $4.5 million into native financial aid efforts in an Eleventh-hour bid to spend remaining federal funds meant to deal with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Of that sum, $2.5 million will likely be funneled by means of greater than a dozen cities, to be doled out to native companies by way of applications these localities have already established in response to the coronavirus disaster. The cash will likely be distributed based mostly on inhabitants, with Everett set to obtain probably the most — about $641,500.
A few of the municipalities will enable extra companies to use for his or her financial aid applications. Different cities will award the cash to candidates which have already requested funding however haven’t obtained any. And a few will do each.
As of Wednesday, the next cities deliberate to simply accept new purposes: Everett, Mountlake Terrace, Monroe, Stanwood, Bothell, Arlington, Snohomish, Marysville and Mill Creek, in keeping with county spokesman Kent Patton.
Then again, Edmonds, Lynnwood, Mukilteo and Lake Stevens deliberate to spend the funding fully on prior purposes, Patton stated.
The county will give $2 million of the CARES Act cash to Financial Alliance Snohomish County, which is able to present the funds to qualifying companies that utilized for grants earlier this yr. The financial alliance has already awarded grants to some candidates with the assistance of the Washington State Division of Commerce, stated Chris Mefford, interim president and CEO of the alliance.
“We aren’t taking new purposes, since we now have between 200 and 300 small companies in Snohomish County that utilized unsuccessfully for the sooner grants. We intention to serve these companies with the county’s CARES {dollars},” Mefford stated in an e-mail.
The county has spent the vast majority of the almost $145 million it obtained final spring from the federal package, recognized by the acronym for Coronavirus Support, Reduction, and Financial Safety. Officers have been weighing what to do with the remainder, which should be spent by Dec. 30.
In the meantime, Congress hasn’t handed one other stimulus invoice — a lapse that has left native governments on their very own in figuring out learn how to preserve funding very important public well being and emergency help efforts past Jan. 1.
County Government Dave Somers has proposed that the county council allot the stability, now pegged at some $13 million, to the sheriff’s workplace this yr and earmark an equal quantity of the county’s 2021 common fund to aid efforts. His employees have argued that this plan will reserve contingency funding for subsequent yr with out drawing scrutiny from federal auditors. The U.S. Treasury Division has stated that public security is a authorized use for CARES Act funding.
Council members have expressed assist for reserving some cash to proceed aid applications in early 2021. The council is poised to move a price range revision in mid-December that may make clear how a lot, precisely.
If no extra funds are budgeted for subsequent yr, county division leaders have warned that very important efforts would stop, together with rental and meals help. Resort and motel vouchers that at the moment are offering shelter for greater than 150 individuals would expire, forcing these people onto the streets within the winter. The county would now not have the sources to assist present youngster take care of important staff or protecting gear to these on the entrance strains of the pandemic, county division leaders have warned.
“It could be imprudent to not have some cash to deal with the wants that we all know are going to occur in 2021,” stated Ken Klein, a former county councilman who’s now one in every of Somers’ high staffers.
If no extra money is saved for subsequent yr, a state-mandated quarantine and isolation facility at Monroe’s Evergreen State Fairgrounds would additionally need to be scaled down or shut down fully, officers have stated. The ability has to this point usually offered a secure place to remain for a number of individuals at a time who’ve COVID-19 or may have the sickness; at one level, it was wanted to shelter about 50 individuals after an outbreak hit a neighborhood homeless shelter, Patton stated.
The council’s most up-to-date allocation to financial aid applications got here after a number of members insisted that among the remaining CARES Act funding ought to be spent earlier than the top of the yr as a result of so many households and companies are struggling now.
“It is a product of quite a lot of conversations and the council’s understanding of how essential and the way very important these {dollars} are to get out the door to our communities, our companies, our residents — proper now,” council Vice Chairperson Stephanie Wright stated on the Nov. 16 assembly.
One other deadline looms. Washington’s eviction moratorium is set to expire at the end of the year. Meant to stop individuals from turning into homeless within the midst of a worsening public well being disaster, the moratorium has been in place since March. Gov. Jay Inslee has prolonged it a number of occasions.
The variety of residents in search of monetary assist to afford groceries, utilities and different necessities continues to surge, stated Cory Armstrong-Hoss, the director of communications and advertising for Volunteers of America of Western Washington.
Regionally, the necessity for rental help has outpaced the funding obtainable to offset rental prices.
From July 1 to mid-November, greater than 6,300 individuals requested for rental help in cellphone calls to North Sound 2-1-1, which helps join individuals with fundamental sources, Armstrong-Hoss stated. Throughout that point interval, Volunteers of America of Western Washington enrolled roughly 4,500 households in its homelessness prevention program. Not the entire 211 callers in search of help met this system’s eligibility necessities, Armstrong-Hoss famous.
The human providers company, which has obtained CARES Act cash from the county and different native jurisdictions, offered rental help to extra households from July by means of October of this yr than the earlier seven years mixed, he stated.
Volunteers of America of Western Washington has additionally helped feed greater than 100,000 individuals in latest months as native meals banks proceed to face overwhelming want, Armstrong-Hoss stated.
As companies grapple with heightened restrictions and public well being officers confront the grim prospect of crowded hospitals this winter, Inslee and different governors throughout the nation have begged for extra assist from the federal authorities to proceed combating the pandemic.
President-elect Joe Biden is pushing for federal lawmakers to move one other stimulus invoice earlier than he takes workplace in January. However with President Donald Trump’s administration heading for the door and Congress hobbling its method by means of a lame-duck session, there are doubts about whether or not a deal is feasible.
“We watch the headlines,” stated Patton, “Identical to everyone else.”
The Related Press contributed to this story.
Rachel Riley: 425-339-3465; rriley@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @rachel_m_riley.
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