The City of Portland recently launched a new open data portal that will allow community members to track how Portland is spending its first installment of $104 million in federal relief from the American Rescue Plan.
The City of Portland was awarded $208 million across two installments, the first arriving in 2021 and the second this year.
Across both investment packages, city leaders say that they have prioritized Portland’s most urgent needs: housing stability and homeless services, business revitalization, community health and safety, and replacing lost revenue to ensure important city programs and services continue.
According to officials, the second round of investments will support continued work on the Safe Rest Villages project, gun violence prevention programs, affordable housing development and preservation, and a variety of programs to support local businesses and neighborhood business districts.
The American Rescue Plan Act, passed by Congress and signed by President Biden in March 2021, includes $350 billion in grants for state, local, tribal and territorial governments to support relief from public health and economic impacts of the pandemic. Recipients can also use the funds to replace government revenue lost to the pandemic, invest in certain infrastructure projects and provide premium pay for essential workers.
Last year, city leaders identified four primary categories for the first allocation of Rescue Plan funds, contributing to dozens of new and existing programs to support local businesses and business districts, keep Portlanders in their homes, create safe and welcoming gather spaces for community to reconnect, and support people experiencing homelessness with safer shelter options, including:
• Household Stabilization, $45,500,000
• Business & Commercial District Stabilization, $12,839,931
• Community Health and Safety, $8,805,000
• Program Delivery/Revenue Loss, $36,802,756
Following the final approval of funding allocations last July, project teams partnered with the central Rescue Plan delivery team to review their project design through a Results-Based Accountability lens, create implementation strategies, establish contracts and partner agreements, and develop reporting measures to track progress and impact.
City leaders claim that the Rescue Plan open data portal will provide citizens and policymakers alike with access to project data and better understand the progress and impact of these projects.
The data portal includes spatial and demographic information about who and where Rescue Plan investments are helping, the partners who are helping to implement projects — and how projects are advancing equity outcomes.
“I applaud the transparency that the new open data portal provides the public,” said Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler. “Accessing this data will allow us to make better-informed decisions for the community these investments serve.”
