ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) —
The last of Buncombe County’s Covid-19 relief funds were spoken for on Tuesday night.
Three years since the global pandemic brought a nearly $50.7 million infusion of Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, county commissioners reallocated the last $1,935,286.
At a meeting Tuesday night, they unanimously approved a plan to shift $935,286 out of a cancelled Reimagining Deaverview housing project and $1 million out of a broadband expansion fund, instead allocating $514,085 to the Community Paramedic Collaborative and $1,421,201 to Capital Outlay Equipment.
According to a staff report, the extra funds will extend four positions in the Community Paramedic Collaborative through June 30, 2026. They otherwise would have expired on Dec. 31, 2024. It also will cover $30,000 in mobile command center costs.
It has been a long journey since spring 2021, when the first tranche of funds began arriving. The U.S. Congress set aside the funding as state and local governments were facing economic challenges from the pandemic, quarantines, temporary business closures, worker furloughs and more.
Buncombe County conducted community surveys in April and May 2021 to decide how to spend its share, then conducted recovery funding workshops and opened up two rounds of requests for proposals.
According to a county website tracking the use of Covid-19 recovery funding, www.buncombecounty.org/recoveryfunding,
as of this week $12.21 million had been allocated to affordable housing, $6.07 million for homelessness services, $4.5 million for broadband, $3.94 million for mental health and substance abuse services, $3.81 for housing assistance, $3.62 million for child care and early learning, with smaller amounts to 14 other categories.