Following the passage of President Biden’s American Rescue Plan, which includes more than $900 million in direct aid to Harris County, Precinct One Commissioner Rodney Ellis is advocating for an equity framework to ensure that these funds effectively address the needs of Harris County residents most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The COVID-19 pandemic exposed many of the deep inequities in our society across race, socioeconomic status, and gender, and our community will not fully recover unless we address these inequities in our recovery plans for the county.

“Just as we created an equitable distribution plan to ensure we are prioritizing the hardest hit zip codes for COVID vaccines from the County, we must create an equity framework for relief from the economic impacts of the pandemic.

“The $900M in direct aid from the federal government represents an opportunity to set our County and its residents up for the future, but we will only be able to do so if we make sure that people who have struggled the most this past year—who lost their livelihoods, who were struggling to put food on the table, who potentially lost their homes—have the resources they need.

“These resources must be spent equitably so that all Harris County residents have a shot at recovering from the impact of this pandemic.”