Emergency housing grant for counties in Washington state

The Washington State Department of Commerce is providing $30 million in grant funding to counties to create housing necessary for quarantine, isolation, and additional sanitation to address the COVID-19 pandemic.

Each county will receive a minimum of $250,000, with the rest distributed based on the number of homeless persons as measured by the annual Point-In-Time Count. See amount totals here by county.

The funding will address the quarantine and isolation needs for people experiencing homelessness and other people who cannot isolate at home, including:

• Create isolation and quarantine housing.
• Create additional emergency shelter capacity for people experiencing homelessness to replace shelter capacity lost when the state required increased social distancing.
• Increase sanitation in existing homeless housing.
• Other costs associated with addressing the public health needs of people experiencing homelessness or displaced from their former housing due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

 “This initial funding amount will help every community take immediate steps to help their residents,” said Lisa Brown, Department of Commerce director.  “We are aware that more funding from other sources will be essential as we move forward through the COVID-19 pandemic.”

More information about the new COVID-19 emergency housing grant requirements is available here.