Austin City Council members on Thursday approved a swath of items that will pump millions of dollars into the city’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The council approved contracts for hotels to use as quarantine facilities, meals for the homeless and a budget amendment that appropriates millions to emergency relief efforts.
The council unanimously voted to tap $15 million in budget reserves to provide direct assistance to people facing financial hardship amid massive amounts of layoffs from business closures related to city and state orders designed to tamp down the spread of COVID-19.
That money will be split evenly between providing monetary help and services like meal assistance to the needy. Austin Public Health will manage the funds, which will be doled out to social services nonprofits for rapid deployment of aid to individuals in two to three weeks.
“I am really excited about that time frame,” said Council Member Delia Garza, the lead sponsor of the item.
Stephanie Hayden, the director of Austin Public Health, said health officials will begin seeking individuals who qualify for aid on Friday.
The council approved three contracts with local hotel owners to lease the Crown Plaza Hotel in northeast Austin, the La Quinta at Interstate 35 and Texas 71 in South Austin and a Motel 6 at Interstate 35 and U.S. 183 as isolation or quarantine sites for people who test positive for COVID-19 but have no way to separate from their families or the public.
The three hotels combined hold 492 rooms. The largest hotel, the Crown Plaza, also will provide meals to people staying there. Each contract is for a 60-day term with optional 30-day extensions for a combined total of up to $3,568,860.
Interim Austin-Travis County Health Authority Dr. Mark Escott said as of Wednesday a couple of dozen people already are staying in hotels, and more are expected in coming weeks and months as the virus surges to an expected peak sometime during the summer.
The council also codified the city’s policy to not shut off any city utilities to people unable to pay during the crisis. Austin Water and Austin Energy also pumped $5 million each into customer assistance programs.
Council members also approved a $400,000 contract with Revolution Foods to distribute meals to the homeless community at 50 sites across the city over a nine-week period that began on April 1.
The only relief item that faced any push back was a resolution from Council Member Kathie Tovo calling for the city to use its fledgling live music fund to provide direct assistance to musicians.
Mayor Steve Adler opposed using the $3.6 million fund because he said it should be in place when the pandemic ends to promote live music. He said tapping those funds now might lead to the elimination of a fund that is less than a year old.
“I don’t want us to eat the seed corn on that,” Adler said.
Tovo’s resolution passed after it was watered down to only call for research into using the fund.
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