COVID-19 Emergency Management Team briefing number 3: Social Services Director outlines programs available to help traverse COVID-19 financial landscape

WC-DSS Director DeAnna Cheatham, right, and Michelle Smeltzer brought important information on assistance programs available through both the public and private sectors to Thursday’s Emergency Management Response briefing. Royal Examiner Photos/Roger Bianchini – Royal Examiner Video/Mark Williams – Royal Examiner Audio/ Mike McCool

Warren County Department of Social Services Director DeAnna Cheatham was the featured speaker at the third weekly briefing of the Warren County-Town of Front Royal COVID-19 Pandemic Emergency Management Team. Cheatham offered crucial information on available programs, and their application processes, that can help people and families hit hard by the economic repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic and response, with financial and material assistance.

Cheatham was accompanied by Michelle Smeltzer, who added detail on the extended life of WC-DSS’s thermal shelter program for the county’s homeless population, as well as a list of additional private sector, religious and non-profit programs providing crucial food and material assistance to those struggling to survive this strange new medical, governmental and social distancing reality we have been cast into for an as-yet-undetermined amount of time.

From left, Smeltzer, Cheatham, Chairman Mabe, and Mayor Tewalt held down the main table at Thursday’s briefing. Municipal staff and support personnel listened from nearby in the adjacent caucus room.

County Board and Joint Emergency Management Team Chairman Walter Mabe opened the meeting by repeating his call for county citizens to be aware of not only their family’s needs but the needs of their neighbors, particularly more vulnerable portions of the population including the elderly, infirm and non-mobile. It is those of our neighbors who may need a little neighborly assistance in accessing supplies or the programs described by Cheatham and Smeltzer that can provide those supplies
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Also, during the Thursday afternoon briefing at the Warren County Government Center’s main meeting room, Front Royal Mayor Eugene Tewalt referenced that evening’s town council budget work session. Tewalt noted that one topic would be a projected $2-million budget shortfall. During a brief question and answer with the media near the briefing’s end, the mayor indicated that the referenced shortfall was in the current FY 2020 budget, as opposed to the FY 2021 budget council is now pondering potential future revenue shortfalls from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Above, prior to Thursday afternoon’s 3:30 p.m. start County Emergency Manager Rick Farrall chats with Cheatham and Smeltzer, as Chairman Mabe and Mayor Tewalt prepare to launch the third weekly COVID-19 emergency management briefing; below, Valley Health’s Front Royal COVID-19 testing tent, by appointment only. Farrall indicated all but one of the county’s 9 cases have been diagnosed from here.

Prior to the meeting’s outset, County COVID-19 Emergency Manager Rick Farrall told this reporter, at an appropriate social distance, that the number of confirmed COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) in Warren County had risen to nine, with the six-jurisdiction Lord Fairfax Health District the county is a part of now having 102 cases confirmed.

And Cheatham implored citizens during this difficult time, not to forget that April is Child Abuse Prevention Month. – So, remember to protect yourself from COVID-19 contamination, as well as our community’s children from domestic violence.

See the approximate 25-minute briefing, including important information on financial and food assistance programs available to county citizens through WC-DSS and other agency programs in this exclusive Royal Examiner video: