Franklin County commissioner details what county is doing to help during coronavirus shutdown

COLUMBUS (WCMH) — Numbers tell the story here in Franklin County, where about 300,000 people usually get assistance on the county level during any given week.

During the first week in April, first-time applications for Medicaid are up by nine percent; applications for SNAP food benefits were up more than 14 percent; and requests for cash assistance were up nearly 20 percent from where they were just one month ago.  

Franklin County Commissioner John O’Grady said it is all hands on deck as county government tries to meet the needs of the people who live here.

“We’ve spent the last month kind of drinking from the firehose, doing all we can making sure that all of the bases are covered,” O’Grady said. “Everybody is being serviced, everybody’s being touched and everybody is being taken care of.”

Each day starts for O’Grady with an online meeting that typically has more than a hundred people from dozens of county departments and agencies setting COVID-19 strategies.

“Trying to figure out how we can do more for the businesses that are in need, do more for people that are looking for a job,” O’Grady said. “We are trying to serve senior citizens that are so much in need, trying to serve families that are so much in need. Our job and family services department, but beyond that, our children’s services department. I mean it’s a gigantic job that’s gotten even bigger.”

O’Grady is one of the Democrats with high praise for Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s ongoing handling of the pandemic.

The job is complicated by those – like protestors at the statehouse – who are non-believers.

O’Grady said central Ohio is in better shape than much of the country because of early, effective controls.

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