At the height of the COVID pandemic, California cities housed thousands of homeless people in empty motels in an effort to promote social distancing and reduce crowding in the shelter system.
Now, FEMA is taking back their offer to reimburse a majority of these costs. Cities across the state may be forced to pay millions of dollars in expenses for the hotel rooms they used to house homeless people.
Officials had been told the federal government would reimburse up to 90 percent of the costs for these programs. But the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has changed the rules about what, exactly, they plan to reimburse.
This could cost California cities more than $300 million. In San Francisco alone, the bill could reach $190 million. This is potentially disastrous for San Francisco, whose deficit is projected to reach more than $1 billion in the next few years.
Since the start of the pandemic, San Francisco has spent more than $423 million sheltering more than 5,000 people in hotels and other “non-congregate” facilities. FEMA is now saying that it will not reimburse hotel stays that were longer than 20 days between June 11, 2021 and May 11, 2023.
Both state and local officials are pushing back on FEMA’s new rules.
