On March 11, 2021, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) into law. The $1.9 trillion Fiscal Recovery Funds package is intended to support the response and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, including public health and economic impacts. The City of Bloomington received   $13.4 million of these COVID-19 relief funds. In July of 2022, these funds were allocated by City Council into three buckets: Infrastructure, Economic Development, and Socioeconomic Development. The funding amounts were $9 million, $2.2 million, and $2.2 million respectively. Of the $2.2 million allocated to Economic Development, $750,000 were spent on the downtown Bloomington streetscape design, leaving $1.4 million for the Small Business Rehabilitation Grant Program.  

The  Small Business Rehabilitation Grant Program was created to support small businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, as defined by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. This grant program will provide grants of up to $45,000 to qualifying small businesses to financially assist in the rehabilitation of brick & mortar stores in support of increased safety and accessibility.