PROVIDENCE – The Federal Emergency Management Agency is allocating $27.3 million to cover costs associated with the statewide COVID-19 response in the state in 2020 and 2021, the agency announced Thursday.
More than half of funds were allocated to the R.I. Department of Health, but funding was also provided to the R.I. Department of Administration and the R.I. Office of Housing and Community Development.
“FEMA is pleased to be able to assist Rhode Island with these costs,” said FEMA Region I Acting Regional Administrator Paul Ford in a statement. “Providing resources for our partners on the front lines of the pandemic fight is critical to their success, and our success as a nation.”
The distributions include $10.8 million for the Department of Administration for the construction of the three alternative hospital sites in the state, adding 1,400 hospital beds to Rhode Island’s capacity, and $9.6 million for RIDOH to set up a temporary facility as a COVID-19 testing case investigation center, as well as $2 million for the R.I. Office of Housing and Community Development to provide temporary housing in hotels for quarantining and isolating homeless patients and for vulnerable populations experiencing homelessness.
The remaining funds, allocated to RIDOH, covered costs of public outreach efforts, to coordinate contact tracing, testing and cluster containment, and costs of licensing a Salesforce platform for data collection, integration and analysis, as well as the development of a contact-tracing mobile application.
To date, FEMA has awarded Rhode Island more than $260 million in funds to defray costs for pandemic-related expenses.
