SAN FRANCISCO– California cities and counties still don’t know how much they will have to pay for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s pandemic program to house homeless people in hotel rooms, after the Federal Emergency Management Agency said in October it was limiting the number of days eligible for reimbursement.
State and local officials say they were stunned to learn in an October letter that starting June 11, 2021, FEMA would only pay to house homeless people at risk of contracting COVID-19 for up to 20 days — instead of unlimited – starting June 11, 2021. Gov. Gavin Newsom has rescinded the sweeping stay-at-home order he issued in March 2020.
In response, the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services asked FEMA to reconsider the policy change, saying it would cost cities and counties at least $300 million at a time when budgets are tight and local governments had relied on assurances that federal government would choose to raise costs.
Late Tuesday, FEMA said in a statement that it will review California’s Jan. 31 letter, but that all states “have received the same guidance and policy updates throughout the pandemic.”
Newsom announced the hotel housing program — called Project Roomkey — in March 2020 as part of the state’s response to the pandemic. Homeless advocates heralded it as a new way to protect residents who couldn’t stay home to reduce virus transmission. FEMA agreed to pay 75% of the costs and later increase it to full reimbursement.
California officials argued to the federal agency that no notice had been given about the policy change.
Robert J. Fenton, the regional administrator for California who wrote the October letter, told CalMatters, which first reported on the discrepancy last week, that the policy was not new.
“What I’m doing is clarifying the original guidelines of the original policy and giving that back to them,” he told the nonprofit news organization.
FEMA declined to make Fenton available to The Associated Press for an interview on Tuesday.
Cal OES spokesman Brian Ferguson said earlier Tuesday that FEMA inaction would have “a chilling effect on the future confidence of local governments and the federal government” in times of crisis.