Mary Dixon: Last year, the city of Chicago was given an unprecedented opportunity. It got nearly two billion dollars in federal COVID-19 relief money. The city used those funds, in addition to hundreds of millions in bond funding, to create the Chicago Recovery Plan. The plan aims to bolster community organizations helping the city’s most vulnerable people – those impacted by violence, mental health issues, and more. A year later, these dollars are just starting to trickle down. WBEZ’s Mariah Woelfel has more.

Mariah Woelfel: At a downtown law firm that overlooks Lake Michigan, Lindsey Nathan’s office sits next to a corner for kids to play while their parent, usually their mom, gets legal help.

Lindsey Nathan: Kids really get into it and there’s a bucket of toys over there so sometimes it’s like "okay mommy’s gotta go" and the kid's like, "no I don't wanna go" and I'm like "okay we gotta go!

Mariah Woelfel: Nathan has been an attorney assisting survivors of domestic abuse for 11 years with Ascend Justice. The organization is slated to get hundreds of thousands of federal funding to offset the impacts of the pandemic.

Lindsey Nathan: With the pandemic, it's like you’ve got an explosion of abuse, you’ve got an explosion of clients, you’ve got an explosion of people needing these free services, and free services that are just very overwhelmed. So I think we saw, really for like the first time since I’ve been here, other than my maternity leave, we’ve been closed for intake.

Mariah Woelfel: Now, the organization says it will get $190,000 dollars a year – the biggest city grant they’ve ever gotten – to pay two staff attorneys for the next three years.

Lindsey Nathan: It may seem small, like relatively, I mean to us we're legal aid - like any amount of money, you know, kind of like give me $50, right? Yeah, I'll use it, we need it, you know?

Mariah Woelfel: Nathan’s group is one of many slated for unprecedented funding made possible by the windfall of federal dollars, but there are many organizations waiting. Of the $1.2 billion slated for new projects, just $250 million of it will be spent by the end of this year. Some advocates say that’s because the city has been slow to issue Requests for Proposals and get contracts signed in order to start doling out the cash. Jennie Bennet, the city’s Chief Financial Officer, says the gradual rollout is, in part, intentional.

Jennie Bennett: The intention was always to have you know, some portion of that money spent in those subsequent years so that we could carry forward programs so it’s not, like for example, you see a big influx of mental health money one year and then the money goes away, but that we’re effectively building real capacity over time and creating some sustainability in those programs.

Mariah Woelfel: But there is still a cliff on the horizon – all COVID-19 federal funding, or ARPA funds, need to be spent by 2026. After that, it’s unclear what will happen to the organizations receiving unprecedented funds. That’s why Amanda Pyron, an anti-domestic violence advocate, made the case to Chicago aldermen at a recent hearing, to start thinking now about how to incorporate this type of spending in the future.

Amanda Pyron: We really need to sustain these services. For instance, these attorneys that are now representing survivors in the court, will still be needed once the ARPA funds dry up.

Mariah Woelfel: Back at Ascend Justice, McKenzie Griffith was recently hired with federal funding to give legal help.

Mariah Woelfel: So you’ve been here how long...

McKenzie Griffith: Uh like 8 days, 9 days I think – hahaha!

Mariah Woelfel: She’s still setting up her desk near the kids corner of the office. Once in full swing, Griffith will take on about 25 cases, helping moms who’ve been the victims of abuse. And, the organization hopes, freeing up the office to start taking new clients for the first time since its pandemic-era closure. Mariah Woelfel, WBEZ News.

WBEZ transcripts are generated by an automatic speech recognition service. We do our best to edit for misspellings and typos, but mistakes do come through.