In the wake of COVID, Skokie will be distributing $1.15 million in federal funding for job training, emergency financial assistance for residents, grants for social service agencies and to support minority-owned, low-income and startup businesses, officials said.
The money is coming to the village from the federal government in the form of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, said Ann Tennes, director of marketing and communications in Skokie.
“The funding enabled by ARPA has been extremely valuable to communities across the country, including the Village of Skokie, and to residents, businesses and social service agencies as they both recover and respond to emerging and increased service needs resulting from the pandemic,” she said.
Tennes said the funds will be distributed after the village receives them, which is expected sometime during fiscal year 2023, and that a specific distribution date has not yet been announced. In anticipation of the funds and because of the requirements imposed by the U.S. Treasury for recipients, an application and reporting process is underway, she said.
She said funds are limited and they will be used to, among other things, assist individuals and families to pay rent, mortgage and/or unpaid utilities. Individuals and/or families should call the Skokie Health and Human Services Department at 847-933-8208 for more information.
“Throughout this pandemic, we have seen many different hardships that Skokie residents have gone through and we would like to make sure that basic needs, such as housing and utilities, are being met,” Tennes said. “The village’s social work team members will work one on one with Skokie residents on their emergency financial applications to ease the process and remove any barriers that they may face when applying. We will also be verifying with their housing providers, either landlord, mortgage provider and/or utility company, on what is past due.”
The ARPA funds will also be available for workforce training scholarships, in partnership with Oakton Community College, and assistance to social service agencies supporting Skokie residents, Tennes said.
In addition, funds will also be available to small businesses, including low-income and/or minority-owned, start-up and emerging business ventures within the village that were legally established after January 27, 2019 and can demonstrate that the business has been negatively affected by closures, revenue loss or disproportionate economic hardships in their growth or establishment due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to information from the village.
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“The pandemic has been extremely hard on small businesses who rely on smaller margins in order to continue to operate and grow,” Tennes said. “Village staff reached out to over 170 Skokie-based small business in June 2020.”
“These businesses reported 25% to 90% revenue reductions due to work product or services being postponed, reduced, or canceled due to shutdown of non-essential businesses, severely affecting business income with many being too small to qualify for available funding programs,” she said.
Businesses and nonprofits will need to complete s Step 1 application by Friday, July 8, 2022, at 11:59 p.m. to be considered for Step 2 eligibility, according to the village. Step 2 application scoring will include completeness of the Step 1 application, follow-up documentation, and responsiveness by the local service agency.