Goodwin Presents Outline for American Rescue Plan Funding

Mayor Amy Shuler Goodwin unveiled her plan for the City of Charleston’s American Rescue Plan (ARP) allocation during tonight’s ARP Advisory Committee meeting. The ARP funds, approximately $36 million dollars, would be broken into three major buckets – Economic Recovery, Healthy & Safe Communities and Investing in Our City’s Future.

“These American Rescue Plan funds represent a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the City of Charleston to invest in our economy and communities now, while also ensuring a bright future for generations to come,” said Mayor Amy Shuler Goodwin. “This funding gives us the opportunity to tend to several projects that have needed attention for years and invest in significant long-term projects.”

In Goodwin’s plan, $8 million would go towards Economic Recovery, $13 million would go towards Investing in Our City’s Future and $14,801,358 would go towards Healthy & Safe Communities. The suggestions given at the ARP listening sessions held in April & May helped determine the amounts of money that went into each bucket.

“The information we received from the public was invaluable in creating this plan,” said Goodwin. “This funding is for the people of Charleston so it was critical that we heard the voices of all that it would impact. Over 250 individual email suggestions were submitted in addition to the folks we heard from at our listening sessions.”

Examples of projects that could be funded from each category include:

• Economic Recovery – new business incentives, maker’s space, business grants, tourism incentives, events, festivals, etc.
• Healthy & Safe Communities – vaccination and testing supplies, eviction relief, demolitions, shelters, additional support for the CARE Office, treatment programs, food security, summer youth jobs program, etc.
• Investing in Our City’s Future – turfing fields, pool upgrades, feasibility study & design for a new public safety center, street & sidewalk repair, establishing a public/private partnership to facilitate broadband expansion projects, etc.

Also, during the meeting, the committee reviewed and approved an application to be used by those seeking ARP funding. Applications will open on October 1, 2021 and can be found on the City of Charleston’s website. The application submission period will end December 15, 2021.