On March 11, 2021, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act into law. The City will receive over $600 million in Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (LFRF) across two years. Half of this funding, $303.8 million, was received on May 20, 2021. The remaining half will be available in May of 2022.
"I am grateful to the Biden-Harris Administration for making these funds available to Houston and communities across the country. Having a website to track the funding is a matter of transparency and maintaining trust with the public," said Mayor Sylvester Turner. "We want Houstonians to know exactly how the ARPA funds are being spent to support government services and our essential employees."
The City will use the majority of ARPA funds to help protect the salaries of our first responders, including police, firefighters, EMS, health, and solid waste workers who continued to work every day of the pandemic and are critical to our struggle with COVID-19.
Additional details are outlined on the website and available as a one-page supporting document at the bottom of the site.
The site is: www.houstontx.gov/arpa.
"Mayor Turner has asked we make this information available to the public beyond what is required in reporting and we hope this website will serve as an info hub for the public," said City of Houston Government Relations Director Bill Kelly.
Additionally, the website also details the ARPA funding for airports and rental relief programs. The partnership between Houston and Harris County on rental relief funding has provided more money to help renters than any other program in the United States. It has been called a model by the US Treasury Department.
The City will continue to add details on how it spends the funds to benefit all Houstonians.