Multnomah County ARP investments: Crisis response and community recovery

Multnomah County’s ARP investments have been used to maintain or expand the our safety net services, and to invest in addressing the negative impacts of the pandemic to help our community recover.

Total ARP Investments: $44.3 million ($138 million with rent assistance)

American Rescue Plan Act funding has helped Multnomah County preserve, and in some cases expand, the reach of County safety net services, as well as our efforts to address the negative impacts of the pandemic to help the community recover. Informed deeply by data and community feedback, investments include crucial housing stability and eviction prevention services like emergency rent assistance and wraparound services; supports for youths and families; violence prevention, intervention and healing; opportunities to build community assets and resilience; and other forms of client assistance.

Program NameProgram DescriptionFY22 Amount BudgetedFY23 Amount BudgetedNotes
Countywide: Direct Client Assistance

Direct client assistance played an important role in supporting community members’ ability to address housing instability, food insecurity, and household and family needs.

FY22 highlight: More than 4,300 individuals and families received critical direct cash assistance, with more than 70% of the funding dispersed to residents from communities that were disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.

$9,162,000$7,905,000

Department of Community Justice (DCJ) Community Violence Prevention: HEAT, Elevate, Gun Violence Prevention

In order to prevent, intervene and address the impacts of gun violence, Multnomah County has invested in helping community members re-establish connections and interpersonal relationships to increase resilience in individuals, families and communities; addressing the impacts of both generational and recent trauma for survivors, offenders, families and community members affected by violence, and; expanding and enhancing access to high-quality culturally competent and coordinated mental and behavioral health supports to ensure the emotional and social well-being of all community members, including and especially those working and living on the front lines of the crisis.

The Habilitation, Empowerment, Accountability, and Therapy (HEAT) curriculum is a groundbreaking culturally responsive cognitive behavioral intervention program designed for African American individuals involved in the criminal legal system. Watch additional HEAT coverage here.

The Elevate program, part of the widely recognized Community Healing Initiative (CHI), is designed for men 18 to 25 years old in the Latinx and African immigrant communities who are affected by gang involvement and gun violence. CHI Elevate works to help high-risk young men gain employment, education, mentoring and more.

Community Health Specialists work in collaboration with the Health Department and the Department of County Human Services to provide families with safety plans and trauma support for those who have felt the direct impacts of gun violence.

$1,273,000$0Funding for this program was moved to the General Fund in FY23
DCJ Gun Violence Prevention Incubator Pilot

Helped build capacity in community-based organizations by providing them with the necessary skills and experience to create gun violence intervention programming centered around high-intensity life-coaching for individuals at the greatest risk of gun violence.

The pilot program provided intensive case management and life-coaching for justice-involved individuals ages 18 to 25 who were at a high risk of gun violence that was provided by trusted community members with relevant lived experience.

$300,000$300,000
Nondepartmental (NOND) Food Access - CROPS focused on BIPOC farmersOne of Multnomah County’s goals is to increase access to culturally appropriate, organically grown food and offer more access to economic development opportunities for populations that have historically experienced marginalization and discrimination, particularly in relation to farmland access. This funding was used to increase community access to fresh, culturally appropriate food, and to offer culturally specific training of new farmers that focused on Black and African immigrant residents.$200,000$500,000
Library Tech Mobile

This investment supported the efforts by the Multnomah County Library's IT Services program to lend Chromebooks and hotspots to people in communities with gaps in digital access. WiFi hotspots are part of the library’s Tech Lending program that supports digital access for BIPOC and other marginalized communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, as well as others who need digital access, by lending Chromebooks and internet hotspot devices.

$500,000$0

Library Outreach Hotspots

$0$200,000
Department of County Human Services (DCHS) Eviction Moratorium Support and DCHS Expanded Housing Stability and Eviction Prevention/Department Infrastructure

Renters in Multnomah County were connected to resources that provided accurate and timely information to help them access the legal protections and rental assistance they may have been entitled to for eviction protection.

This investment helped to connect renters in Multnomah County with timely and accurate legal support for navigating issues and impacts from COVID-19, including access to direct legal support when they were faced with eviction.

FY22 highlight: More than 1,800 individuals and households gained access to legal and other supports that helped keep them in their homes thanks to this ARP investment.

$1,220,000$0Funding for the “Eviction Moratorium & Prevention Support” portion of this investment was moved into the FY23 General Fund in the amount of $400,000.

DCHS Expanded Domestic Violence Services including Case Management, Victims Advocates

Culturally specific community-based advocacy services and system-based advocacy embedded with law enforcement are both vital components of the response to domestic violence.

FY22 highlight: ARP funding helped more than 180 adults and children connect with specialized, population-specific domestic and sexual violence services, including trauma-informed care, ongoing risk assessment, safety planning, intensive support, advocacy, case management and help accessing other community resources.

$755,000$782,000
DCHS SUN Summer School Support and Resource Navigators

Throughout the pandemic, families have experienced greater levels of basic needs. This investment provided additional staffing capacity at each SUN Community School site that helped support families’ access to resources like food, housing, employment, healthcare and more. This capacity was also critical to working collaboratively with school building administrators.

FY22 highlight: The culturally responsive Family Resource Navigators prioritized support to families of color and worked alongside close to 2,000 families to help reduce barriers in the home ​​and foster students’ abilities to learn and thrive.

$5,529,000

$4,276,420

DCHS Baby Bonds and Multnomah Mother’s Trust - Pilot

The Multnomah Mothers' Trust Project worked with approximately 100 Black female-headed households with children who were receiving services from one of two community-based programs, with a focus on households living east of 82nd Avenue. Families received an unconditional monthly basic income, and were invited to serve as participant researchers in an equity and human centered collaborative design process to explore and plan for future implementation of a Baby Bonds program, debt reduction, homeownership and other asset building initiatives.

$625,000

$1,350,000

DCHS Culturally Specific Renter Support focusing on East CountyARP funding was allocated to the Peer Navigation Program, which provided ongoing, culturally specific peer support to BIPOC households with the goal of improving housing stability or connecting them with stable housing and preventing homelessness.$515,000

$534,580

DCHS/Joint Office of Homeless Services (JOHS) Emergency Rent Assistance ProgramRental assistance is a key strategy to supporting stable housing, which is linked to positive health and social outcomes for individuals, families and communities. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in unprecedented numbers of layoffs and furloughs, the impacts of which will continue for years to come. This has led to high levels of housing instability and even deeper racial disparities and challenges to pay rent. This investment was used to provide rent assistance and related supports.$48,800,000$44,768,835
Health Department (HD) Public Health Community Partnerships and REACH ExpansionThis ARP investment was used to increase capacity within Pacific Islander, Latinx, Black/African American, and African immigrant and refugee communities to focus on youth violence prevention; chronic disease prevention; mentoring, training, and technical assistance across multiple content areas; and convening stakeholders to advance community priorities, including strategies focused on COVID-19 recovery.$1,166,000$0This investment was moved to the Public Health Emergency Response category for FY23 in the amount of $1,023,706.
HD Public Health Communicable Disease Prevention, Intervention and SurveillanceThis investment helped address disparities by identifying racial, ethnic and other community groups who are either at risk of, or being impacted by, infectious diseases$1,038,000$0This investment was moved to the Public Health Emergency Response category for FY23 in the amount of $711,208.
Culturally Specific Behavioral Health Programs

Funding supported a Behavioral Health Trauma Healing and Recovery pilot program designed for African American women who may be emerging from abuse, abandonment, incarceration, or addiction to help improve mental and physical health outcomes.

This investment also supported the expansion of Behavioral Health Telehealth and In-person Access for Immigrant and Refugee Populations, which helped organizations that work with immigrant and refugee communities address COVID-19-related barriers to care by supporting technology improvements or the creation of safe spaces for in-person meetings.

Lastly, this allocation funded the expansion of two culturally specific peer behavioral health recovery support programs, one of which serves the Native American community and the other the Latinx community.

$620,000$625,000This investment was originally split into three separate allocations in FY22: “HD Behavioral Health Trauma Healing and Recovery Program” ($170,000), “HD Behavioral Health Telehealth and In-person Access Expansion for Immigrant and Refugee Populations” ($200,000) and “HD Behavioral Health Peer Recovery Support Services” ($250,000).
HD Behavioral Health Gun Violence Response and Services for Gang-impacted Youth and FamiliesGun violence is a racial justice issue that is fueled by discrimination and structural inequities in our society. Gun violence in our community is disproportionately impacting our African American, Latinx, Asian and African Refugee communities. Multiple community organizations and community leaders have been proactively addressing community gun violence for decades, working side-by-side with the communities most impacted and advocating for racial justice. This investment provided additional direct mental health services to youth (ages 10-18) and their families impacted by gun violence, specifically focusing on the African American, Latinx and African Refugee community.$1,214,400$1,214,000
HD Health Officer Health Data ExchangeThis funding provided a Health Data Exchange platform to push Emergency Medical Services data to hospital electronic charting systems and to push data and information from the hospital electronic charting systems back to the emergency medical service charting systems.$400,000$0This investment was moved to the Public Health Emergency Response category for FY23 in the amount of $400,000.

HD Demonstration Project for Neighborhood Focused Violence Prevention Coalition

A healthy and intact social fabric is a critical protective factor against community violence, as well as numerous chronic diseases. However, that benefit is compromised by disparities that disproportionately impact local BIPOC communities — including neighborhood conditions, social determinants of health, trauma, racism, disinvestment, over-criminalization and displacement.

Taking a public health approach, coalitions can work together to create a vision for community safety, utilizing community voice and data to create and implement solutions that support the protective factors and the social fabric of the neighborhood. The coalition can consist of neighborhood residents, community-based organizations, neighborhood institutions, and relevant jurisdictional partners that help identify, advocate for, and implement specific, local solutions and responses to violence.

This ARP investment provided capacity to support neighborhood-focused gun violence coalitions to address both neighborhood violence and its root causes.

$101,000$0
DCHS - COVID-19 YFS Energy & Housing Services, Domestic Violence Motel Vouchers, and ADVSD Support Services

$1,233,461

$4,288,300

Non-departmental (NOND) Emergency Management - Logistics/Community & County PPE

$0

$215,000

This investment in COVID-19 Policy and Project Coordination was originally included in the FY22 “Non-departmental (NOND) Emergency Management - Logistics/Community & County PPE” program in the Public Health Emergency Response category, but was broken out and moved into the Crisis Response and Community Recovery category for FY23.

Youth Connect

$0$1,000,000Included in FY23 only

ARP - Gun Violence Case Backlog

$0$821,802Included in FY23 only

ARP - YFS Division Support Staff Expansion

$0

$148,000

Included in FY23 only

ARP - YFS Sex Trafficked Youth Services - New Day Collaborative Backfill

$0$70,000Included in FY23 only

ARP - YFS Food Security / Pantry Enhancement

$0$150,000Included in FY23 only

ARP - YFS Rent Assistance Team Staffing Capacity

$0$2,730,000 Included in FY23 only

COVID-19 ADVSD OAA ARP

$0$754,593 Included in FY23 only

ARP - COVID-19 Benefits and Entitlements Specialist Team (BEST) Expansion

$0 $200,000Included in FY23 only

ARP - Old Town Inreach

$0 $1,100,000Included in FY23 only

ARP – Civil Process – Reducing Community Violence Involving Firearms

$0 $314,382Included in FY23 only

ARP – Detectives Unit – Reducing Community Violence Involving Firearms

$0 $161,977Included in FY23 only

ARP - Add’l Close Street Supervision Positions

$0 $348,461Included in FY23 only
Last reviewed December 30, 2022