American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA)

American Rescue Plan Act

Spokane’s Recovery Plan

The City of Spokane has received over $80 million in recovery funds as part of the Federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Council has established a Recovery Plan Work Group, including Council and Administration representation, that will develop implementation proposals and identify partnerships with City Departments, other government entities, and nonprofit organizations for the effective delivery of funds to the community in alignment with the requirements of the ARPA. As part of this process, it is important that we hear the community’s ideas and suggestions on how we allocate and spend recovery dollars.

A framework for allocating these funds, adopted by City Council in Resolution 2021-0045, establishes that the federal recovery funds will be allocated with four main purposes:

Purpose 1: Replenish lost City government revenues due to the pandemic to drive catalytic investments and to restore COVID-curtailed services that will move the city forward and increase our resiliency.
Purpose 2: Reach out to community partner organizations to fund initiatives that will remedy the damage caused by the pandemic with investments that will support future growth and opportunities.
Purpose 3: Resiliency for Spokane – as we bounce back, we must make significant investments in forward-thinking initiatives that will create long-term, sustainable growth, and stability for the City of Spokane and all its community members; and
Purpose 4: Relief for residents and businesses that have been left behind by other relief programs.

ARPA Funding Opportunities

The City is currently seeking proposals to use federal pandemic relief funding. Funding will be awarded through a public Request for Purposals (RFP) or Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) process. This process requires submission, review, and evaluation of application materials for alignment to eligibility requirements and competitiveness. Please look to the specific RFP/NOFA for instructions on submitting your application. View current RFPs and NOFAs on the Current Funding Opportunities page.

Council Approved ARPA Funding

The City Council declared that an urgency and emergency exist for adopting ordinances for the City of Spokane, allocating funding for first-out programs from the American Rescue Plan Act. A subsequent Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for each item will follow, allowing the public to submit proposals and apply for funding.

Council has voted and approved the following items:

Ordinance C36163 (PDF 910 KB)
Ordinance C36176 (PDF 1.2 MB)
Ordinance C36246 (with funding descriptions) (PDF 2.8 MB)
Ordinance C36051 (PDF 1.6 MB)
Ordinance C36054 (PDF 1.4 MB)
Ordinance C36152 (PDF 3.3 MB)
Ordinance C36162 (PDF 1.2 MB)
Ordinance C36167 (PDF 1.8 MB)
Ordinance C36200 (PDF 1.5 MB)
Ordinance C36201 (PDF 1.2 MB)
Ordinance C36217 (PDF 3.6 MB)
Ordinance C36347 (PDF 2.9 MB)

Equity Statement

The City of Spokane is committed to equitably and effectively utilizing ARP resources to help our community bounce back as soon as we can and in the best way possible. To do this we look to fund organizations and businesses that take into consideration past inequities and will go forward to honor the expertise, relationships, and resilience within communities of color and those historically impacted by inequities providing them with lasting partnerships and co-created solutions to eliminate systemic hardships.

Community Input

Community feedback was instrumental in helping to guide our decisions in funding priorities to move us toward economic empowerment and recovery for Spokane. Through our ThoughtExchange platform, we captured over 2,700 ideas and thoughts, with an impressive 45,900 rankings of these ideas, proving that your opinions matter. This word cloud illustrates the most significant ideas and thoughts to emerge from our ThoughtExchange and was used in consideration for the funding process.