Riverside County in line to receive nearly $1 million in FEMA humanitarian relief funds

Riverside County is in line to receive nearly $1 million in coronavirus-related humanitarian funding provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency under a long-standing relief program, it was
announced today.

FEMA said a total $320 million in Emergency Food and Shelter Program funding will be distributed nationwide. Two-thirds of the distribution is part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief & Economic Security -- CARES -- Act package approved by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump in March.

The balance is comprised of previously budgeted money. Riverside County's slice of the government disbursal will be $958,794, according to the program website.

"These funds are for people with non-disaster related emergencies and can be used for a broad range of services, including mass shelter, mass feeding, food pantries and food banks, payment of one-month's utility bills to prevent loss of services, payment of one-month's rent/mortgage to prevent
evictions/foreclosures and transition assistance from (temporary) shelters to stable living conditions,'' according to a FEMA statement. The agency's Emergency Food and Shelter Program has been in place since 1982.

Over nearly four decades, $4.8 billion in relief funding has been disbursed throughout the country, officials said. The United Way will administer the relief funds when they're received.

More information is available at www.efsp.unitedway.org.