City of San Antonio COVID-19 relief funds aid impacted organizations

Published on September 29, 2022

City of San Antonio COVID-19 relief funds coming to local arts and immigrant support organizations impacted by the pandemic

SAN ANTONIO (September 29, 2022) – Today, the City of San Antonio’s City Council approved a total of $6.5 million in State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to support the San Antonio arts and immigrant support organizations.

ARPA 4 Arts

The Department of Arts & Culture’s ARPA 4 Arts Grant Program will distribute a total of $4 million to 46 San Antonio arts nonprofits and a total of $1 million to 136 San Antonio artists who were disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
Approved individual artists are San Antonio based who have been working as professional artists for the last three years, derive a portion of their income from their artistic activity and demonstrated COVID-19’s impact to their artistic career. Scoring for the grant program included a focus on equity, as COVID-19 disproportionately impacted specific communities more than others including low-income communities, communities of color and women. Approved individual artists will receive grants between $7,200 and $7,500 based on their scores.
 
Approved San Antonio arts nonprofits must have been providing open to the public arts programming for the last three years and demonstrated COVID-19’s impact to their business. The noncompetitive funding scale for nonprofits was determined by an organization’s budget range, whether the organization has a current grant with the department and if the organization’s programming promotes, preserves and enhances the identity and character of specific communities including women, LGBTQIA+, African American, Latino/a, Asian American and Native American.
 
“The pandemic placed the San Antonio’s arts community in a vulnerable position with significant financial impacts,” said Krystal Jones, Director, Department of Arts & Culture. “The goal of this program is to provide San Antonio’s creative industry immediate relief to continue to move forward through this pivotal recovery phase and on to creating arts programming that benefit our entire community. We are now actively administering these funds, so our artists and nonprofits can focus on creative endeavors, rather than how to make ends meet.”
 
For more information about the Department of Arts & Culture Grant Programs, visit www.SanAntonio.gov/arts.
 

Nonprofit Social Services Phase I: Immigrant Services

The Department of Human Services will distribute a total of $1.5 million to nonprofits and social service partners to support critical efforts to help immigrant residents recover from the pandemic. San Antonio’s immigrant community and social services were impacted by the pandemic with significant disruptions to the U.S. immigrant system. This impact exacerbated existing barriers to immigrants seeking citizenship.
 
The funding provided through the department’s Request for Proposals competitive process will be used to support targeted programs and strategies to improve economic security and increase citizenship pathways for immigrant residents. The funding will support many residents who were not previously eligible to seek federal relief funding provided to individuals and businesses during the pandemic. 
 
“COVID-19 disproportionately impacted immigrants in our community by exacerbating barriers to resources and creating new challenges for those seeking citizenship,” said Melody Woosley, Director, Department of Human Services. “These funds will provide an opportunity to provide much needed relief to the immigrant community in San Antonio to assist them in recovering from the pandemic.”
 
For more information about the Department of Human Services Programs, visit https://www.sanantonio.gov/humanservices.
 

About the Allocations

Following City Council’s February 2022 allocation of $5 million to arts and $1.5 million to immigrant-serving agencies, the Department of Arts & Culture developed an ARPA 4 Arts Grant Program for artists and arts nonprofits and the Department of Human Services created a Request for Proposals competitive process for organizations serving immigrant communities as part of the first phase of supporting nonprofit social services. Implementation plans for both processes were developed with significant community input and approval by City Council and its Community Health, Environment and Culture Committee.