Bridging the Gap: Advancing Equity Through ARPA Investments 

After the American Rescue Plan Act was enacted to help states and local areas recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, Los Angeles County received an unprecedented amount of funding— $1.9 billion—to counteract the devastating harm. 

No county in the nation saw more people die of COVID-19 than Los Angeles, and the risks were highest in low-income communities of color. To help them, community advocates and county leaders developed a response to support these hardest-hit communities. 

In November 2021, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors adopted a motion, Moving Forward on Equitable Implementation of the American Rescue Plan, to equitably address the urgent needs of communities. County leaders then worked to implement the motion’s key components: equity principles, funding formula, streamlining contracting, and a public dashboard.  

Catalyst California developed a case study to investigate the implementation of these components.  This included interviews with several county departments and stakeholders, and analyzing the data available on the county’s dashboard.  

The case study shows the county largely implemented the ARPA spending plan equitably, though there are definite areas for further improvement. 

This result is proof-of-concept for embedding equity into the way the county develops all its programs and distributes their funding.  We encourage Los Angeles County supervisors and departments to apply the components of the motion beyond ARPA projects to ongoing programs.