Anti-Terrorism and Emergency Assistance Program Grant Agreement in Mayors Consent Agenda



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:
  1. 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. 
  2. to cover the costs of operation of the Orlando United Assistance Center (FacebookWebsite) by the Heart of Florida United Way, Inc. (Website) in the amount of $1,186,757.
  3. to cover certain allowable costs associated with one year remembrance activities.
This item to approve the agreement is on the Consent Agenda for the August 28th City Council meeting. Read the document here.

The following services through the following organizations should meet the majority of the stated need to date:

  1. Heart of Florida United Way: The United Way is providing overall management and leadership relative to services, funds, data collection and administrative support to service providers, supervision of service delivery, toll-free hotline with support and bi-lingual services. (4 navigator/advocate staff plus equipment and on-going expenses). These services are offered at the Orlando United Assistance Center (OUAC), operated by the United Way. The OUAC is solely for the use of the victims of the Pulse shooting and for Pulse related activities. The center provides navigation as well as direct services and serves as a hub of activity relative to Pulse response. United Way has a contract with the City of Orlando until December 31, 2017 to pay for these services, but will be the sub-recipient beginning in 2018. United Way is receiving a staff position for a Manager of Partnerships. The purpose of this position is to provide coordination and facilitate collaboration of services for the Pulse victims. The expectation is that the Manager will be in the field meeting with the responding agencies to identify and fill service gaps. This position will be hired and provided oversight by an advisory committee comprised of representatives of the stake holding agencies listed in this proposal.
  2. Orange County: The County provides all human services (health, mental health, and social services), not only for Orange County, but for the City of Orlando. Following the shooting, the County provided a building, equipment and initial supplies for the OUAC. The County will also be responsible for providing a First Responder Assistance Coordinator. This Coordinator will ensure that all training, assistance and contracts for services be provided to First Responders impacted by the Pulse Shooting. This individual will serve as a one-stop shop for all of the local jurisdictions and departments to contact for assistance.
  3. University of Central Florida (UCF): UCF has been working with special forces combat veterans on resolution of PTSD. They utilize their evidenced-based treatment practices to assist the first responders that are struggling with unresolved PTSD due to their involvement with the Pulse response. They will be reimbursed by Orange County on a contract and fee-for-service basis.
  4. The Hispanic Counseling Center: The Hispanic Counseling Center is a for-profit mental health provider that provides bi-lingual licensed therapists to clients. These services would be available based on referrals from one of the partner agencies and may be reimbursed through United Way on a fee-for-services basis.
  5. Two Spirit Health Services: Two Spirit is a non-profit LGBTQ specific service provider that provides a variety of low cost medical and licensed mental health services. They are able to assist with wound case for those injured, medical outreach, as well as mental health and psychiatric services for victims.
  6. City of Orlando: The city has spent large amounts of funding designated for other services on this victim response. The City of Orlando also has had a month to month contract with United Way to staff services, clerical and navigation/advocacy at the OUAC. Beginning January 1, 2017, the City entered into a one year contract to continue those services which will be transitioned to United Way as the grant sub-grantee beginning in 2018.
  7. Osceola County: The County is home to a large numbers of victims from the Pulse shooting. They are requesting reimbursement of expenditures for emergency needs directly related to the shooting as well as funding for a case manager for 27 months. This individual will assist the victims connect with existing resources both within Osceola as well as the City of Orlando and Orange County. 



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.) 

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.