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Housing Assistance
Money to help you with expenses for damage that impacted your home, which may include:
- Rental Assistance: Money you can use to rent housing if you are displaced from your home because of the disaster.
- Lodging Expense Reimbursement: Money to reimburse you for emergency lodging expenses, such as hotel or motel stays. This money is only available if you do not receive money for Displacement Assistance, which is detailed below, under Other Needs Assistance.
- Home Repair or Replacement (Homeowners): Money to help you repair or replace your home damaged by the disaster. This may also include money for hazard mitigation measures, which are actions you can take when making repairs that will help reduce the amount of damage to your home in future disasters. The money can also help with pre-existing damage to parts of your home where the disaster caused further damage.
- Accessibility Needs: Money to help survivors with a disability to cover costs to make specific repairs to their home to ensure it is accessible, such as an exterior ramp, grab bars, and a paved path to the home entrance. Repairs can be made when these items are damaged. Improvements can be made when those features were not present prior to the disaster, and they are needed due to a pre-existing disability, or a disability caused by the disaster.
- Privately-owned Roads, Bridges, Docks: Money for survivors whose only access to their home has been damaged by the disaster.
Other Needs Assistance
Money to help you with necessary expenses and serious needs caused by the disaster, such as:
- Serious Needs Assistance: One time payment to help you pay for immediate needs such as water, food, first aid, prescriptions, infant formula, breastfeeding supplies, diapers, personal hygiene items and fuels for transportation.
- Displacement Assistance: Money to help with immediate housing needs if you cannot return to your home because of the disaster. The money can be used to stay in a hotel, with family and friends or other options while you look for a rental unit.
- Personal Property: Money to help you repair or replace appliances, room furnishings, and a personal or family computer damaged by the disaster. This can also include money for books, uniforms, tools, additional computers and other items required for school or work, including self-employment.
- Medical/Dental: Money to help you pay for expenses because the disaster caused an injury or illness. This money can also be used to help replace medical/dental equipment, breastfeeding equipment, or prescribed medicine damaged or lost because of the disaster.
- Funeral: Money to help you pay for funeral or reburial expenses caused by the disaster.
- Childcare: Money to help you pay for increased or childcare expenses caused by the disaster.
- Assistance for Miscellaneous Items: Money to help you pay for specific items, (such as a generator, dehumidifier, chainsaw, etc.) that you purchased or rented after the disaster to assist with recovery. The miscellaneous items may be used for gaining access to your property or with cleaning efforts caused by the disaster.
- Transportation: Money to help you repair or replace a vehicle damaged by the disaster when you don’t have another vehicle you can use.
- Moving and Storage Expenses: Money to help you move and store personal property from your home to prevent additional damage, usually while you are making repairs to your home or moving to a new place due to the disaster.
Apply to FEMA
To apply for FEMA disaster assistance, you can go online at DisasterAssistance.gov, download the FEMA App for mobile devices, or call toll-free 1-800-621-3362. If you use a relay service, such as video relay (VRS), captioned telephone or other service, give FEMA the number for that service.
FEMA videos and Public Service Announcements about the California wildfires are available for public use and can be found online.