Some of Phoenix's last relief dollars are set aside for heat response and shelter

Phoenix's federal pandemic relief money is almost gone. The part that isn't sits in programs meant for residents, including homelessness projects and temporary heat shelter, not in the city's own operations.

As of Aug. 31, 2026, the city had spent $390.7 million of the $396.1 million it budgeted from the American Rescue Plan Act, according to the city's open-data dataset on ARPA funding (City of Phoenix Open Data). That works out to 98.6% spent, with $5.4 million still waiting to go out the door.

Congress passed ARPA on March 11, 2021, in one of the largest federal recovery efforts (City of Phoenix Open Data). The money Phoenix received was meant to help state, local and tribal governments respond to and recover from the COVID-19 public health emergency (City of Phoenix Open Data), and it arrived in installments (City of Phoenix Open Data). The Phoenix City Council approved a spending plan for each installment, on June 8, 2021, and June 7, 2022 (City of Phoenix Open Data). Those plans set the program budgets that spending is measured against.

Where the leftover money sits

The city split its relief dollars between community programs and its own operations. City Operations has $0 left unspent. Every remaining dollar is in Community Investment.

That side of the ledger was budgeted $308.3 million and had spent $302.9 million, or 98.3%. The gap, $5.4 million, is the city's entire unspent balance.

Within Community Investment, the Affordable Housing and Homelessness category still holds $1.1 million. It has spent 99.3% of its budget, so the leftover is a sliver of what the category was given. For the programs still waiting on it, though, that sliver is the money that hasn't reached anyone yet.

In all, 13 Community Investment programs still have budgeted money left. A few hold most of it. The single largest balance belongs to one program with $2.7 million unspent.

Shelter and heat dollars still on the books

Some of the unspent money is tied to the city's most vulnerable residents. Homelessness Projects, allocated on June 7, 2022, the day the council approved its later spending plan, had $578,831 left as of Aug. 31.

Heat Response/Temporary Shelter, allocated on Apr. 12, 2022, had $351,797 unspent. In a city where summer can be dangerous for anyone without a cool place to go, a program with that name is one people living outside would notice.

Neither balance is large next to the citywide total. Both are money the council set aside for specific work that, by the city's own books, had not been fully paid out by the end of August.

Checking the city's math

Residents can follow the spending themselves. The city last updated its ARPA funding dataset on Sept. 28, 2026 (City of Phoenix Open Data), and it posts annual Recovery Plan Performance Reports, including one for 2025 (City of Phoenix Open Data), that show where spending stood in earlier years.

For people in Phoenix, the question is no longer whether the city spent its relief money. It's whether the last $5.4 million lands in the shelter, housing and community programs the council approved it for.

About the data

We used the City of Phoenix's open-data ARPA funding dataset, which lists budgeted and spent amounts by investment focus, Community Investment category and program, with figures as of Aug. 31, 2026. We subtracted spending from budget at each level to find the unspent balance and ranked Community Investment programs by how much remained.

• The figures reflect the city's books as of Aug. 31, 2026, and spending since then is not included.
• Unspent money may already be committed to contracts or invoices that had not been paid by that date, which the dataset does not show.
• The dataset reports dollars, not results, so it cannot say how many people each program has served.

American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA): The federal pandemic recovery law passed by Congress in March 2021 that sent relief money to state, local and tribal governments. Community Investment: The city's label for ARPA money directed to programs for residents, as opposed to money used for City Operations. Budgeted but unspent: Money the city has assigned to a program in its ARPA plans that had not been recorded as spent by the reporting date.

Sources

• The publisher's CKAN open-data portal (named with each dataset): ARPA Funding, latest period 2026-09-28, released Sept. 28, 2026; retrieved Oct. 16, 2026. Data