On March 14, 2017, the United States Department of Justice awarded the State of Florida, Office of Attorney General, an Anti-Terrorism and Emergency Assistance Program (AEAP) Grant. The purpose of this grant is to provide funds to the State of Florida to administer as the lead agency on behalf of affected local governmental agencies and non-profit organizations to assist with a portion of the costs incurred in response to the incident.
The Office of Attorney General has provided the City with a subrecipient agreement to allow the City to receive a subgrant of a portion of the funds received by the State of Florida. The allocation being made to the City of Orlando is $1,602,034.
This subgrant provides funding to be used:
SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION: The Heart of Florida United Way was the only non-profit identified in the region with the capacity to quickly scale up and manage an Assistance/Navigation Center. The city of Orlando contracted with them and they took over the OUAC management and implementation less than a month after the shooting. They have been fulfilling this role ever since. As a result, there is no other potential contractor with their structure or contacts in place for administration and implementation of the OUAC. In other words, they are currently doing the work and have the capacity to continue to do so. They also have existing contracts and relationships with all of the entities providing services to Pulse victims/survivors, as well as case management and data systems that can be adapted to the work at hand.
- to reimburse the City for a portion of the City’s direct costs to serve victims to date and consists of allowable costs associated with the operation of the Family Assistance Center in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. This includes staff overtime, materials, supplies, and other costs to assist victims.
- to cover the costs of operation of the Orlando United Assistance Center (Facebook | Website) by the Heart of Florida United Way, Inc. (Website) in the amount of $1,186,757.
- to cover certain allowable costs associated with one year remembrance activities.
The following services through the following organizations should meet the majority of the
stated need to date:
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SCOPE OF VICTIM POPULATION IN NEED: It is estimated that there were 402 patrons and
staff in the Pulse nightclub on June 12, 2016. Of those individuals, 49 were killed, 53 were
injured, and approximately 300 were other patrons and nightclub staff. Since the shooting
occurred at a nightclub, the majority of the impacted population is aged 21-35 and male, many of
whom were underserved before the event either due to their LGBTQ or undocumented
immigrant status. These are individuals with very limited experience in seeking and consistently
following up with services, thus the proposal has quite a bit of case management items. It is
anticipated that all of the surviving direct victims (353) will seek services. There are also
numerous secondary victims, which are families of the direct victims, first responders and others
who responded to the crime scene and assisted the direct victims, and families of those first
responders. Regarding the primary victims, for deceased victims, estimate 10 impacted
survivors, or 490 individuals; for injured, estimate 6 impacted survivors or 318 individuals; and
for additional patrons and staff, estimate 4 impacted survivors or 1,200 individuals. These
estimates are calculated to assume that a larger number of family members are impacted by the
death of a loved one leading to higher levels of traumatic grief and additional stressors than
families who had someone injured or witnessed the event. This totals 2,008 secondary victims
who are associated with the primary victims. Additionally, it is estimated that approximately
465 other secondary victims, i.e.: first responders from police, fire, emergency medical services,
the hospital, and the medical examiner’s office directly assisted with efforts to rescue and assist
victims and their families, at least 1,283 individuals, are also affected. The total estimated
number of secondary victims is 3,291. A 20% target ratio (the percent likely to seek services) is
applied to these secondary victims, resulting in approximately 659 secondary victims likely to
seek services. (See chart in Grant Narrative.)
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SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION: The Heart of Florida United Way was the only non-profit identified in the region with the capacity to quickly scale up and manage an Assistance/Navigation Center. The city of Orlando contracted with them and they took over the OUAC management and implementation less than a month after the shooting. They have been fulfilling this role ever since. As a result, there is no other potential contractor with their structure or contacts in place for administration and implementation of the OUAC. In other words, they are currently doing the work and have the capacity to continue to do so. They also have existing contracts and relationships with all of the entities providing services to Pulse victims/survivors, as well as case management and data systems that can be adapted to the work at hand.