A look at how Detroit spent its American Rescue Plan Act dollars
When COVID-19 hit, Detroit received a historic infusion of federal funds through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), designed to help cities recover from the pandemic.
The city received about $827 million, with money going toward housing, job training, home repairs, health services, homeless support and recreation centers.
But whether Detroiters feel the impact of that money may depend on what they expected to see.
"Detroit does stand out in terms of the amount of money it actually allocated specifically to these job training, job readiness, job preparedness programs," said Dale Thomson, a professor of political science at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.
Many of those investments, including housing and job training, were designed to help specific groups of residents, which may help explain why some people feel the impact more than others.
"There is an impact; it's substantial; it's much more rapid than in previous similar programs here in Detroit, but again, because it supports very specific things, it's easy for some people to miss," said Michael Montgomery, a lecturer in the Department of Health & Human Services at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.
Both experts say one of the biggest questions moving forward is accountability, not just where the money went but also whether Detroiters can clearly see what results it produced.
"If you're looking at accountability, one of the first things is transparency, right? So, what is the city sharing with the public in terms of where the money went?" said Thomson.
For some Detroiters, the biggest question may now be what happens when the federal money runs out.
"What does the future look like for those things? And that obviously was not at all impacted by this deliberately and designedly short-term project," said Montgomery.