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Montgomery County Recovery Office
Draft Recovery Plan Now Available for Public Feedback
The Montgomery County Recovery Office is pleased to share the draft funding recommendations for use of $161.4 million in Pandemic Recovery Funds. The Draft Recovery Plan includes funding for 110 projects and allocates all funding. The Draft Recovery Plan and related information is available here.
The public is encouraged to provide feedback on the plan through in-person and virtual town hall events or by submitting a written comment, now through August 5, 2022. Learn more about providing feedback here.
The Draft Plan follows a ten-month community engagement process, through which the Recovery Office received 426 project submissions totaling $1.3 billion in funding requests, and 157 idea submissions. The Draft Recovery Plan considers both community-identified priorities for supporting an equitable recovery post-pandemic, as well as the one-time nature of this funding source. The Draft Plan prioritizes investment into historically underserved communities and transformative projects or ideas with the potential for spurring long-term change across Montgomery County.
The Draft Recovery Plan recommends investments into:
The Draft Recovery Plan responds to the community’s prioritization for investment into more affordable housing options across the county, given the challenges to housing stability that the pandemic and related economic crises took on renters and homeowners. These investments include:
- Construction of 325 new affordable housing units for low and moderate income renters and homeowners
- $5.5 million in seed funding for the Housing Opportunities Fund, an innovative public-private partnership to use unused land, blighted/condemned properties, and/or hotels for sale, for the use to build or rehab into affordable rental housing
- $500,000 expansion of the down payment assistance program for first time homebuyers
- $5.8 million to support renovation of existing public and privately owned affordable units
- $6.8 million for short-term housing for single adults experiencing homelessness, including costs associated with the relocation of the Coordinated Homeless Outreach Center which closed in July 2022
As a result of the pandemic’s significant and persistent impact on resident mental health, the Draft Recovery Plan supports programming into mental healthcare access across the county. These include:
- $5 million for school-based behavioral health services, which will enable school districts throughout Montgomery County to access funding to hire staff through a program coordinated by County Recovery and Mental Health Offices
- Community-based programs and services for child and adolescent art therapy, support services for rural older adults, and counseling services specific to LGBTQIA+ residents, among others
- $5 million for the creation of a behavioral health crisis response service center, allowing for a long-needed investment into the county’s ability to serve residents experiencing mental health crises
As part of its commitment to supporting an equitable recovery from the pandemic, the Recovery Office is recommending projects that will invest in historically underserved communities, providing facilities hosting critical services and gathering spaces. The Draft Recovery Plan includes investments such as:
- Support for a new site for ACLAMO Family Centers in Norristown, which primarily serves the Latino/Hispanic population
- $7 million for the establishment and renovation of facilities serving the Norristown community
- $5.25 million is recommended for the creation of a community and wellness center specific to Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander communities
- $5.5 million is recommended to support the YWCA Tri-County’s new site expansion in Pottstown
The Pandemic Recovery Fund program prioritizes child care centers and the early childhood workforce, given the impact on the industry throughout the pandemic. The Draft Recovery Plan funds:
- $4 million in direct operational support for child care centers across the county made available through a program that will be coordinated by the County’s Recovery and Early Learning Resource Center offices
- $3.3 million is allocated for the implementation of a novel in-home child care program supporting off-hours workers
- $500,000 for convening stakeholders in further research, strategic planning, and pilot programming to address the child care worker crisis, in response to a significant number of "idea" submissions that spoke to challenges in the industry related to worker retention and pay, ongoing education and training, and ability to attract qualified workers to the field
In response to its outreach specifically to small, minority and women-owned businesses, the Recovery Office received a number of submissions requesting support for business operations and other needs. The Draft Recovery Plan allocates:
- $2.7 million to fund small grants directly to improve women and minority-owned businesses, made immediately available to qualifying businesses that had already applied to the Pandemic Recovery Fund. Other qualifying businesses, with priority placed on the County’s qualified census tracts in Norristown and Pottstown would also be eligible to apply for this grant program.
- $2.5 million across multiple projects to coordinate impactful investment in Norristown and Pottstown businesses
- $8.2 million for workforce development across multiple sectors, tuition assistance initiatives, and job marketing and preparedness mentoring projects
Project and idea submissions received through the Pandemic Recovery Fund process showed a prevalent community need for investment in all aspects of the County’s emergency food infrastructure, including food distribution, food production, policy and strategy, and coordination across all partners. The projects funded in the Draft Plan represent a commitment on the part of County and community partners to improve and construct a more cohesive and productive system incorporating focus on root causes. This includes:
- $4 million allocated to construction and renovation of a food distribution warehouse
- $700,000 to increase coordination and improve logistics among food pantries in the county
- $1.1 million to establish a new food policy council in order to coordinate a comprehensive, county-wide plan addressing the root causes of food insecurity
Reflecting the intent of the ARPA legislation, the Draft Recovery Plan includes multiple initiatives focused on improving Montgomery County’s public health and public safety infrastructure. These investments include:
- Supporting emergency medical services workers training and pay
- Improving child and maternity health outcomes
- Assisting firehouses experiencing pandemic-related financial losses
- Resources to analyze, study, and improve the overall emergency services system in the County
- Gun and domestic violence mitigation programs
- COVID-19 monitoring and mitigation strategies
- Access to digital health enhancement efforts
The Draft Recovery Plan also recommends more than $39 million supporting initiatives in multiple program areas including:
- $34.2 million for government services and infrastructure, including revenue replacement, premium pay, essential worker retention and support, lead water piping replacement, and service improvement projects
- $5.1 million for non-profit and community support, including projects providing violence prevention, clothing distribution, immigrant case management services, community data resources and support for nonprofits impacted by the pandemic
Draft Recovery Plan Town Hall Events
As the Recovery Office prepares to release the Draft Recovery Plan on July 18, 2022, we are encouraging all submitters and residents to register for a Town Hall presentation of the Draft Recovery Plan. This discussion will include a brief presentation of how Montgomery County intends to allocate $161.4 million in Pandemic Recovery Funds. Participants will be able to provide feedback on the plan during this session.
Tuesday, August 2, 2022
6:00- 7:00 pm
Montgomery County Community College- West Campus
North Hall 202
101 College Dr, Pottstown, PA 19464
Wednesday, July 20, 2022
Afternoon Session
Click here to view the recorded town hall
Wednesday, July 20, 2022
Evening Session
Click here to view the recorded town hall
Pandemic Recovery Fund Award Timeline
By June 17, 2022: Recovery Office initial review of projects complete
By June 24, 2022: All projects scored, with project scores posted on the Recovery Office webpage
July 18 - July, 29 2022: All applicants notified of conditional funding status. Draft recovery plan published for feedback.
August 18, 2022: Final recovery plan adopted