About 83,000 people applied for help from the COVID-19 Housing Assistance Grant program. Of the 2,000 grants of $1,000 each, half are being disbursed through community organizations and the other half through the city via a lottery.

Analysts are predicting a long and slow recovery once travel restrictions are lifted and several airlines have put orders for new airplanes on hold or have even cancelled orders.

Even before the pandemic, CTA, Metra and Pace were facing challenges, like an estimated $30 billion in capital needs over the next decade. Some would like to see a rumored federal infrastructure bill include money for transit improvements.

Public participation will be on the telephone. Members of the public who normally line up outside council chambers for the right to a coveted slot during the 30-minute segment will be asked to call a specific number and placed in a queue based on the order of their call.

The mayor cracked the door open to the mid-year corrections — which most aldermen and municipal finance experts have been expecting — after once again ruling out layoffs, furloughs and program cuts in this extraordinary time of need.

The Community Recovery Fund, which is part of the county’s community recovery initiative, will offer one-time zero interest loans to small businesses with up to 25 employees and independent contractors who make up to half their income from their contracting work in the county’s suburbs.

“We went from seeing cases double every one-to-two days. Now, we’re in the nine-to-ten-day range, which is obviously progress. But we’re not near the peak. So I don’t want to raise false expectations that it’s coming sometime soon.”

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart’s office has worked with the courts, State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s Office and the Public Defender’s Office to expedite bond hearings and hasten the release of eligible detainees as coronavirus spread at the jail.

Lightfoot noted her order ensures immigrants also have the opportunity to apply for one-time $1,000 grants to help residents who have suffered financially due to the coronavirus outbreak with rent and mortgage payments, online learning resources for students and money from the city’s Small Business Resiliency Fund.

With all the focus on getting masks and other personal protective equipment to first-responders and health care employees, union leaders say the 2,000 employees charged with keeping Chicago clean have been forgotten.

The city is also setting up a Racial Equity Rapid Response Team and will further its outreach efforts out to people in “economically vulnerable communities” on the South and West sides, Lightfoot said.

“Police have been very aggressive in issuing dispersal orders, citations where necessary, and luckily we’ve only had a small number of arrests,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot added. “But people have to understand, yes, it’s a beautiful day, the weather’s getting warmer, but we need people to continue to comply.”

Kaegi says the sweeping reassessments are necessary as the coronavirus wreaks havoc on the economy. But that impact won’t be known until 2021, when property tax bills based on 2020 values are mailed out.

Non-essential businesses that break the order and remain open face fines $2,000 – $10,000. Pritzker has said businesses that don’t comply could also get their licenses and permits yanked, which would prevent them from doing business in the future.