City leaders gathered in Keanna Rice’s backyard on Wilmington Ave. on Monday morning to announce plans to spend the final $7 million in federal pandemic relief funding on home-owning initiatives, rental programming, and subsidies for start-up businesses to help with their rent.

Mayor Wu, City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune and others also used the event on Codman Hill to press the Legislature to pass measures that would keep Covid-era programs funded – such as the housing program that allowed Rice to go from being a Section 8 certificate holder to being a homeowner.

The event highlighted a Boston Housing Authority’s (BHA)-administered program that has used American Rescue Plan (ARPA) funding to assist more than 50 residents in the last two years, according to Wu.

Rice, a 34-year-old Boston native who lived in Mattapan using her Section 8 certificate until rent became unaffordable, had moved to Framingham to find a home. When the Wu administration pumped federal funding into the BHA effort in 2022, she was a prime candidate to participate. She secured a $75,000 down payment assistance grant and worked with Leader Bank to finance her first mortgage six months ago.

“When I heard about the program, I said, ‘That’s me!’” Rice said. “I gave up several times when I put in an offer and someone else came in and paid $50,000 over my offer. There were times I was even looking outside of Boston.

She added: “Now, my son can run around and be loud in our home and bump around playing Fortnite at night and no one is going to call the police or tell me I have to leave my apartment…This program is a dream.”

On Monday, Wu said the final $7 million in ARPA money had to be allocated by the end of 2024 and spent by the end of 2026. The Section 8 to Homeownership program, she said, would receive $3 million, with the rental-based Acquisition Opportunity program getting another $3 million. The final million will go to the city’s SPACE grant program, which offers cash subsidies to start-up businesses for rent.

“Even with that two-year runway, many projects take longer, and we have to put the funds in places where they are up and running and provide the maximum impact,” the mayor said.

“What do we do when the money runs out?” she asked. “We have to find a way to keep this going. There are too many families and too much at stake to let these programs go.”

Wu cited the Real Estate Transfer Fee that Boston has requested the Legislature pass on high-value property sales, which, she said, could provide $100 million per year to fund the programs. The fee is currently stalled on Beacon Hill after it was left out of the state budget in June.

District 4 Councillor Brian Worrell, Council President Louijeune, District 3 Councillor John FitzGerald, District 5 Councillor Enrique Pepen, and at-large Councillor Henry Santana, of Dorchester, spoke at the Monday session and said they are happy to see the city invest the last of the ARPA dollars in something so successful.

“We care deeply about these investments and that more families like Keanna’s are prospering and she can leave this house to her son as generational wealth,” said Louijeune.