Santa Rosa County Still CARES

If you were impacted by COVID-19, contact United Way of West Florida by calling 211, a completely free and confidential service available to Santa Rosa County residents 24/7. United Way can connect you to available food, housing, rental/mortgage, utility and employment assistance. Visit uwwf.org/211 for more information.

CARES Act Resources

CARES Act Impact

Through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, approximately $32M was made available to Santa Rosa County for reimbursable necessary expenditures incurred between March 1 through Dec. 30, 2020, due to the COVID-19 public health emergency. Types of expenses included Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), cleaning supplies, remote operations technology, hands free equipment, sneeze guards, and eligible personnel and programmatic costs.Total expenditures including public safety, emergency operations staff time and other eligible program expenses were submitted to the Florida Department of Emergency Management, allowing the county to receive the total allocation of $32,161,196.

A reserve plan was incorporated into the CARES program framework ensuring available resources for pandemic related emerging needs such as a vaccination plan and continued COVID-19 testing beyond Dec.30.

Please click through the following tabs below to see how CARES made a difference in our county.

Click to Download: CARES Act Impact (PDF)

1. Goverment, Health and Public Safety
2. Education
3. Human Services
4. Economic Recovery

Government, Health and Public Safety

The Government, Health and Public Safety Program was initially established and utilized for testing and contact tracing for county residents, personal protection equipment (PPE) supply, and other infection mitigation strategies.

• Provided funding to contract with Ascension Medical Group Sacred Heart and the Department of Health to establish 48-hour turnaround COVID-19 testing sites within the county, providing a 1,693 monthly patient average.
• Provided reimbursements for unbudgeted COVID-19 related expenses to Santa Rosa Sheriff's Office, Clerk of Court, Tax Collector, Property Appraiser, Supervisor of Elections and the Courthouse.
• Provided reimbursements for unbudgeted COVID-19 related expenses to the cities of Milton and Gulf Breeze and the Town of Jay.
• Provided the fire district and EMS with hands-free lifesaving equipment.
• PPE distribution provided:
  • 161,320 N95, procedure/surgical, and reusable masks
  • 127,004 face shields, gloves, suits, goggles, boot covers and gowns
  • 2,188 hand sanitizers/disinfectants

  EDUCATION

  Provided approximately $3.5 million to the Santa Rosa County School District:

  • $1.6 million for 2000 student laptops
  • $1.9 million for HEPA air purifiers and filters, student tablets, teacher laptops, learning management and computer locker systems

  Provided reimbursements for unbudgeted COVID-19 related expenses totaling $115,265 to three private schools in Santa Rosa County.

  HUMAN SERVICES

  To assist county residents, the following programs were created to ensure basic needs were met through partner agencies including Interfaith Ministries (IM), Council on Aging, United Way of West Florida (UWWF) and Early Learning Coalition:

  • Social Service Assistance: Provided funding to the UWWF 211 referral call center for COVID-19 related calls by county residents.
  • Mortgage/Rent Assistance: Assistance was provided to stabilize housing for families through Development Services and IM.
  • Water Utility Bill Assistance: 84 households received water utility assistance through the following partnering water systems: Pace, City of Milton, Berrydale, Holley Navarre, Moore Creek Mt. Carmel and Chumuckla.
  • Food Assistance: Three organizations received funding for unbudgeted COVID-19 related expenses to support their county-wide food distribution.
  • Childcare Facilities Mitigation Assistance: 50 childcare facilities received assistance to implement cleaning strategies including purchase of easy to sanitize learning tools. 4,152 children benefitted from these funds.

  Reimbursements were provided to eight non profits and community agencies for unbudgeted COVID-19 related expenses.

  ECONOMIC RECOVERY

  The Economic Recovery Grant program was established in conjunction with the Small Business Development Center to provide grants of up to $20,000 to small businesses that demonstrated loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • 336 businesses received $10,000 grants
  • 16 businesses received $20,000 grants