A few updates from the Mayor's office and from last week's State of the City address. Below will be discussed: vaccination sites, proposed budget, covid-19 grants for landlords and small businesses. Text taken from the Mayor's office and may be edited down for simplicity.
City sites to administer close to 150,000 vaccinations this week
Mayor Eric Garcetti announced yesterday that City sites are prepared to administer close to 150,000 first and second doses of COVID-19 vaccines this week, an increase in capacity following the federal guidance ending the pause of Johnson & Johnson. The program will add another fixed location to offer vaccinations in Century City, as well.
This week, the City is expected to receive nearly 42,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine and over 63,000 of Pfizer, along with about 29,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson already in its supply. The city has 10 permanent sites and additional through the Mobile Outreach for Vaccine Equity (MOVE) program. Make an appointment: Coronavirus.LACity.org/VaxAppointment
(see other MINC blog posts for tips on getting free rides to vaccine appointments and local mobile clinics every Tuesday)
Proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2021-22
It’s a recovery budget — building and deepening our COVID-19 response efforts, delivering tests, PPE, and vaccines to Angelenos, allowing our businesses to reopen and hire up, and supporting our tourism and hospitality industries.
It’s a Back to Basics budget — restoring our city services to where they were before the pandemic, with everything from arts and culture programming to gang reduction and youth development, youth employment, and litter removal, to vital investments in our infrastructure, clean streets, and safe neighborhoods.
It’s a justice budget — a reflection of our values that targets $1 billion at efforts to deliver housing, services, and support to our homeless neighbors; to untangle the inequities that have strangled our city and our nation for decades; and to lift up people and communities most impacted by COVID-19 — folks who have too often found doors of opportunity closed to them.
With these investments, we will deliver a massive anti-poverty initiative by enacting the largest guaranteed basic income pilot in America to date. We will start to make up for the wrongs of the past by planting trees in underserved neighborhoods. We will lift up our young people and families with a new Youth Development Department, a new Community Investment for Families Department, and a standalone Housing department. And we will hire youth from zip codes too often locked out of prosperity.
All told, thanks in part to federal support from the American Rescue Plan, we will invest $151 million more to programs and pilots to advance racial justice and economic progress so we can light up every corner of our city that’s been darkened by want or fear.
Simply put: we will clean our streets. We will empower our youth. And we will bring home our unhoused by dedicating, for the first time ever, nearly $1 billion towards ending homelessness.
Learn more at lamayor.org/budget
Grants: apply today!
LA Regional COVID Fund: Led by the County of Los Angeles in partnership with LISC LA, the LA Regional COVID-19 Recovery Fund was designed to provide a much-needed wave of financial relief to businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Fund will be disseminating $4.7 million in financial relief through the new Keep Our Shops on the Block Grant, a $10,000 grant for small brick-and-mortar businesses in the personal care and retail sectors.
If you applied in round 1 and were not selected, you do not need to reapply. If you have not yet applied, eligible businesses can apply for the $10,000 grant starting today through Sunday, May 2nd.
CRCD - Local Rental Owners Collaborative: The Local Rental Owners Collaborative (LROC) is free and open to rental property owners in South LA who own between 2-20 units and have tenants who are behind in their rent due to COVID-19. If they qualify, this program will pay past due rent back to March 2020 through a grant.
The goal is to form a collaborative of local rental owners to help them maintain their buildings and retain ownership in an uncertain time.
You can learn more at www.lalroc.com. Or apply online at www.avail.co/lroc.