Federal COVID aid should help Lexington’s poor, not distillery parking lots and tourism

Generally speaking, Lexington has been pretty lucky in the Urban County Council over the years; they are, for the most part, well-intentioned civil servants, not too crazy or partisan, people who understand the issues and vote accordingly.

Therefore, it’s been a real disappointment to watch the process to allocate $120 million in federal COVID aid unfold. Despite saying the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money should be used to help those most affected by the pandemic, council members appear to be moving forward with a goody bag of pork for those who always get it, namely affluent white people.

Five million dollars for Distillery District parking? Are you kidding me? So people can drink more beer and eat more pizza? $17.5 million for infrastructure in Coldstream Park to practice more corporate socialism for businesses that may or may not relocate to Lexington? Really? Seven and a half million for Town Branch Park, which is a lovely project that was supposed to be entirely funded through private means? Ridiculous. Millions for new trails and parks and a permanent Farmer’s Market in Davis Commons? I’m sure they are terrific civic ideas, but they are not helping where it’s needed most.

What’s needed most is to help the quickly growing number of people getting evicted from their homes. Ginny Ramsey of the Catholic Action Center keeps track of eviction hearings in court every day, and estimates that since September, more than 300 families, possibly as many as 1,000 people, have been evicted, despite another pot of federal money that’s supposed to be preventing that.

City officials dispute those numbers, saying that in October, there were just 130 evictions in court. It’s illegal to evict anyone without going through the court process.

Ramsey, whose organization does not accept federal, state or city dollars, says these city decisions nonetheless affect the Catholic Action Center because they take the people who can’t be helped by other shelters. She’s seen a sharp uptick, particularly as cold weather approaches. She said the process to apply for rental help is too complicated and too many landlords and tenants are not taking part.

“The tsunami we were predicting has come,” she said. “That money is to take care of people who need help to survive, not to give out all these extras.”

Yes, the council is considering $9 million for one-time infrastructure costs for social service agencies and nonprofits, and $10 million for affordable housing. But they have not considered a host of other suggestions to do more for social service agencies who directly help our most vulnerable citizens.

To be clear, parks and trails are wonderful, and we found out how much we loved them during the pandemic. But who walks by the people sleeping in front of the courthouse every night and thinks, we need more parks? No, we need more money for services, from mental health to housing, that can help those people get off the streets. There’s no point in giving $1 million to tourism efforts that are surely hurt when tourists see the number of people sleeping outside. Not a good look.

“They’re going the wrong direction,” said council member Richard Moloney, who has been advocating for the city to hold onto the money as cold weather gets worse.

It would be cynical to suggest that elections are coming next year, and council members are sweetening up their campaign speeches with parks and trails their constituents want more than emergency housing for the homeless. But watching this process, it’s hard not to think that’s what’s really going on.

The council is allowed to consider some projects that don’t meet the federal criteria for funding, because of money the government itself may have lost during COVID, but only about $30 million of the $120 million would qualify. So far, those “revenue replacement” projects total about $97 million. So there is still a lot of work to do.

The council is meeting again on Thursday to make more decisions on which projects will get this precious, one-time largesse. The gap between rich and poor in this country and in this city continues to grow, and as it does, it appears to make it easier to ignore the least among us. Let’s hope council members will reconsider their priorities moving forward.

This story was originally published November 3, 2021 at 1:41 PM.