PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Mental health and housing services were identified as top priorities for the $32.4 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds coming to the city.

 

On Monday, around 40 people gathered at Conte Community School for the first of four public hearings on the use of the federal funds. 

 

When prompted, the group identified mental health and housing as the greatest COVID-19-related public health needs.

 

Attendees voted that addressing "disparities in public health outcomes in the community" is the most urgent category of improvement needed and believed the top three services in need of help are homelessness prevention, behavioral health services, and services for at-risk children.

 

The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Act was passed by Congress and signed into law in March with the goal of stabilizing local government operations, households, small businesses, and other sectors affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

"The need for this money came out of looking at the Great Recession, and where the federal government put money in and where they didn't,"  Director of Community Development Deanna Ruffer said.

 

"And theoretically this is where they feel more work can be done and with the help of local governments, we can kickstart a little faster some of that recovery, and we can get closer to everyone that was impacted."

 

Pittsfield is receiving $32.4 million that is being allocated in two parts. The first deposit of $16.2 million happened about a month ago and the second will happen next year at this time.

 

Obligations for the spending must be made by the end of 2024 and the funds must be spent by 2026.

 

The city is also receiving a county allocation of $8.4 million in two phases. The funds are being distributed to communities on a per-capita basis because Berkshire County no longer has a county administrative structure.

 

"There was a belief at the beginning of the American Rescue Plan from some of our friends in the federal government that this was going to be the communities can do whatever they want with this money, and then we got 150 pages of rules," Mayor Linda Tyer explained.

 

"And we spent about, I don't know, a couple of weeks at least, all of us read the rules and then we got some summaries of the rules, and then we participated in a whole bunch of webinars and it's taken us two months to really for us to understand what this really is all about, and it has so much potential, and our view is that we want to have as much community engagement as possible."

 

The funds can be dispersed into the community in seven different ways to respond to the COVID-19 public health emergency but Pittsfield only qualifies for six because the city was not deemed in need of broadband infrastructure.

 

The money can be used to respond to the public health emergency, address negative economic impacts, help neighborhoods disproportionally impacted such as Morningside and West Side, give premium pay to low-income essential employees, offset the loss of local government revenue, and invest in water/sewer infrastructure.

 

It can not be used for tax cuts, pension funds, to pay legal settlements, or to match other federal grant funds.

 

Ruffer outlined some possible public health uses including testing, infection prevention, paying medical expenses for individuals, and new or enhanced services for mental health in response to the trauma of the pandemic

 

In a group query, mental health and housing were identified as the greatest COVID-19 related public health needs.

 

The attendees also discussed equity and human service needs, which are said to play into each other.

 

A member of the public relayed a message that was gathered through community outreach, stating that there is a need for respect of marginalized peoples' voices and that they don’t feel heard by the city in such meetings.

 

Many spoke about lacking resources in human service fields including child care, mental health care, disabled and elderly care.

 

"I work in human services and one of my questions and in some of these gaps and services are due to the fact that we don't have enough mental health workers to do the job even if the funds are allocated to that," one attendee said.

 

"And so my question is, can this money be given at all to make to make the career more attractive to help people loan forgiveness, higher wages, I'm one of the CO responders you reference, and I love my job and we need more people, and I wonder if kind of delegating this money without realizing that we don't have a workforce to execute it is short-sighted."

 

It was mentioned that the United States may need nationwide post-traumatic stress services for frontline workers, especially for medical workers.

 

Several other pandemic-related public health needs were brainstormed during the hearing. These include re-defining basic needs; disability care; child-care infrastructure; alternatives for elderly residents; and reviving programs that ended during the pandemic.

 

The next hearing, on economic recovery, will be held at on Wednesday at 1 p.m. at the Berkshire Innovation Center.

 

A housing and neighborhoods hearing will be held on Aug. 23 at 6 p.m. in the cafeteria at Morningside Community School and a hearing for cultural organizations will be held at the Lichtenstein Center for the Arts on Aug. 25 at 11 a.m.