Hello and Happy Holidays to our Franklin County residents. It’s been another prosperous year in Central Ohio, but we know that that prosperity doesn’t extend to all of our neighbors. Working to ensure that all Franklin County families have opportunities to share in the community’s ongoing success has been a top priority for us this year, as it is every year.
We started 2022 off with a series of grants to area nonprofits that support the residents and families who call our community home, and provided $8 million in pandemic recovery funds to some of the small businesses in Central Ohio that employ so many of our neighbors. We also stood up a series of workforce development initiatives to help low-income residents level up their career prospects, including Tech Women of Color which trains residents for careers in our region’s growing technology sector, and County Futures which recruits and trains residents for jobs with the county itself. The Otto Beatty Jr. Men’s Shop that we funded this year can even help people in need of professional attire for job interviews and the workplace.
We are also proud of our agencies’ support for individual residents in need, including new expanded outreach to seniors, and a $1 million economic mobility program for young parents. Our historic new RISE child care initiative is already making child care more affordable for Franklin County families with $23 million in supports to young students, child care centers, and teachers, and we have also worked hard to make unprecedented investments in affordable housing in 2022. This year also saw the dedication of a new county jail that is designed not only with safety for inmates and guards in mind, but also for the county to offer services and supports to incarcerated people and their families in order to help them succeed once they get out and to reduce recidivism. We also allocated money this year for body cameras for sheriff’s deputies and joined an exciting new initiative to better track and share data about the justice system.
In 2022, your county commissioners made historic investments in public health, including to promote health equity, created a center to reduce overdose deaths, and invested almost $10 million with the Mid-Ohio Food Collective for nutritional supports for residents, and so much more. As you can see, 2022 has been a great and busy year for us at Franklin County, but you can be assured that we’re not planning to slow down in 2023. It is an honor and a pleasure to work for the residents of this community, and we have big plans in store for the coming months and years. Thank you for all of your support throughout the year, and for taking the time to learn more about how we’ve been working to help every resident every day in Franklin County.
We wish you happy holidays and a healthy new year!
We can help. Along with a team of community partners, the Franklin County Board of Commissioners support Rentful614.com – a simple, reliable, and easy-to-access website that links residents to the Central Ohio programs aimed at keeping people in their homes. This website also dispels common myths, provides eviction info customized to Franklin County, and highlights some of the places you can go to get even more help. LEARN MORE.
Each year, the Board of Commissioners issues an annual State of the County Report to update residents on the health and progress of Franklin County. In the 2022 edition of the report, the commissioners are pleased to again be able to report that the state of the county is strong.
To see the full report, visit [Report.FranklinCountyOhio.gov|report.franklincountyohio.gov]