New London ― The City Council approved more than $500,000 in grants for several social service organizations in the community at a meeting Tuesday.

The money is what remains from the more than $1.4 million American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds given to the city’s Department of Human Services. The department awarded $900,000 in its first round of grants.

Human services Director Jeanne Milstein established a committee to review proposals and make recommendations to the city for funding.

The committee is composed of Milstein; City Council President Efrain Dominguez; Alliance for Living Director of Housing Frank Silva; All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church pastor Carolyn Paterno; Hearing Youth Voices organizing director Maya Sheppard; former City Councilor Curtis Goodwin and Zakkyya Williams of Lawrence + Memorial Hospital.

The committee is working with Full Frame Initiative (FFI), a social change nonprofit, that works with communities and governments with goals similar to those set by the city’s Human Services Department.

Part of the criteria for the funding is that representatives from organizations who receive money meet for monthly meetings.

“We support each other and share learning,” Milstein said.

With the recent round of funding, the Southeastern Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (SCAD) is receiving $156,235 for the transportation services for clients, an outdoor therapeutic space and funds they can be given directly to people they help for a number of reasons such as car repairs or rent assistance.

Safe Futures, the New London-based domestic violence agency, said the $50,867 it will receive will go towards the soft-opening, expected on January 1, 2023, of its satellite office at its 34 Jay St. career center.

Located in New London for 46 years, the agency has purchased property in Waterford for a 23,000-square-foot family justice center, collaborating with multiple agencies on one site. CEO Katherine Verano said they are still campaigning to fund the project, and hope to reach their goal by next year.

Until then, the satellite office in the city, next to their main office, will serve as a space for some of their partnering agencies. Verano said they will have another location in Norwich with funding from Hartford Healthcare.

But even after the justice center is open, she said the office will be used as a walk-in crisis counseling center.

About $10,000 of the human services grant will go towards a contract with Riverfront Children’s Center to provide “supervision and training for child care workers” while their clients are in appointments, Verano said.

Whalers Helping Whalers, a nonprofit with the mission to help New London families in need, is receiving $33,400 for wages, holiday events and winter clothing to increase access to food and basic needs.

Receiving funding for a second time, the Homeless Hospitality Center received $300,000 in the first round. Now it is getting $126,374 for a program to help clients apply to disability benefits and pay for administrative costs and monetary support for clients.

Cathy Zall, director of the center, said there are older adults with physical limitations such as back problems or seizures who can’t find work and are not old enough to receive social security.

“We have people who have no employment and can’t work,” she said. “We asked for this grant to see what we can do.”

Zall said there are many pieces to applying for disability benefits and one of them is to accurately describe one’s medical condition. The grant money, enough for 18 months, would pay for a nurse and other staff to help clients figure out the process.

The New London Public Library, receiving $29,919, will use its grant money for the purchase of laptop computers and support for a Digital Navigator among other things.

Most exciting to Milstein, she said the library will partner with the Child and Family Agency of Southeastern Connecticut to have a part-time mental health consultant at the Birth to Age 8 Early Childhood Resource Center and the library.

The city council Tuesday approved $133,122.54 in a contract with the Child and Family Agency.