As more federal stimulus money is announced, a picture of what kind of support Chicago and Cook County public health agencies will receive is slowly developing.

It’s a murky picture, at best.

With Friday’s announcement that 16 federally qualified local health centers will take in nearly $8 million, it’s clear that low-income Chicagoans will benefit from some of the federal dollars.

But what is not clear is whether the city’s Department of Public Health will reap any reward from Washington.

Earlier this month, Mayor Richard M. Daley announced the city would receive $1 billion in federal funding.

“It’s better than nothing,” he mused at the time.

While that’s true, a goose egg might be the net sum of benefits for the city’s public health department.

Department spokesman Tim Hadac says he doesn’t know how much, if any, funds will trickle to his agency.

While $19.1 million is earmarked for the city’s Department of Family and Support Services, which provides mental health and substance abuse programs, no federal money is designated for public health projects, according to a project spreadsheet created by the mayor’s office.

Anne Sheahan, a spokeswoman for the family and support services department, says those funds will help maintain the agency’s current projects.

“These counseling and referral services help homeless people move to permanent housing and help stabilize the housing market. These services are also available to individuals on the brink of homelessness,” she says.

It also doesn’t appear that Cook County’s Health and Hospital’s System will be receiving any new monies, although its board of directors in December voted to include an estimated $20 million of federal funding in its 2009 budget.

Those funds are from a program called the Federal Medicaid Assistance Percentage, an initiative championed by President Barack Obama to boost federal medical entitlement reimbursement. The funds are in addition to $27 million the county is set to receive from a Bush-era hospital assessment program.