Many cities and counties are still deciding how to spend their remaining local recovery funds from the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). To help local governments use these precious resources to address long-standing inequities and reach the communities disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, PolicyLink and the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School have released initial findings from our research on how cities across the United States are investing their ARPA resources.
The brief answers four questions:
Our analysis of 63 cities’ performance reports reveals that the vast majority of these cities named equity as a top priority, but only about a third of them had plans, processes, staffing, or guidelines in place to operationalize their equity commitments.
The research also underscores the crucial role that community advocates play in convincing local leaders to make targeted, equity-boosting investments. For example, the Coalition for Equitable ARPA Implementation led by the Advancement Project successfully advocated for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to adopt a set of equity principles (including using the funds to reduce racial inequities and not for policing or incarceration), an equity funding formula to distribute the resources based on an index of community need it created, and a public dashboard to track ARPA funding. Of Los Angeles County’s
$1.9 billion, 75 percent is going to neighborhoods hardest hit by the pandemic.
With millions of ARPA funding still in play, we hope that community leaders and local governments borrow, add to, and build upon the examples of targeted, equity-boosting investments shared in this brief.
We will release the full research report later this summer. In the meantime, explore the brief and share this latest resource with your networks.
