Riverside city and county receive over $20 million in renewed state funding for homeless aid

With the number of homeless people on the rise in the latest count in the city and county of Riverside, those local governments have been approved for another year of state funding of $20.4 million under a program called Homelessness Housing, Assistance and Prevention (HHAP); to help pay for housing those in need.

With eight regions across the state receiving $145.4 million in an effort to reduce homelessness, the funds aim to support shelter operations, fund hotel and motel vouchers and provide financial assistance for move-in costs, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced April 8.

“We're making critical investments through programs to help local communities expand housing, strengthen services, and better support people experiencing homelessness,” Newsom said in a news release. “But just investing money is not enough - we have to invest in programs and local governments that are producing real results.”

In an earlier funding round in March, San Bernardino County received $10 million from the HHAP program.

This is the sixth round of HHAP state funding that Riverside County has received, Greg Rodriguez, deputy director of Housing and Workforce Solutions for Riverside County, said on Thursday, April 16.

“In a way, it’s supplemental to the regular funding that we get from the federal government through the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Department,” he said. “But this has much more flexibility than HUD funding does, and then it really helps us expand our services outside of what we do with our federal dollars.”

In the 2025-2026 budget for the county, $2 billion was approved by the Riverside County Board of Supervisors for human services — which includes programs for homelessness, housing and public health. The funding is secured by federal and state program and service funding, grants, sales and use taxes, fees for services and more, according to the county’s website. More specifically, nearly $366 million of the annual budget has been reserved to go towards housing, homeless and workforce solutions.

Rodriguez, who handles Riverside County and the County Continuum of Care, said they both have “the same pot of money” from the HHAP program. The county receives nearly $5.2 million and the County Continuum of Care receives nearly $4.8 million.

The additional funding is about 2.7% of the budget reserved specifically for housing, homeless and workforce solutions.

He said the Continuum of Care prepares documents to outline the goals and scope before allocating those out to providers, while the county does the same — though the county may be tasked with more internal operations. This can include its database management system and outreach teams.

Rodriguez could not provide the exact amounts the funds would be divided as of Thursday, but it will be used for outreach services for rental assistance through the county’s rapid rehousing program, as well as support services, wraparound services and some hotel and motel vouchers.

He added that this allows for the county to use a “wide array” of programs.

“When we allocate this funding, we look at kind of where the hot spots are,” Rodriguez added.

County authorities do not allocate much to the city of Riverside since it receives its own funds, but they try to get funds out to some of the larger cities in the county while trying to target areas with greater homeless populations. That includes Hemet, San Jacinto, Temecula, Murrieta, Wildomar, Lake Elsinore and more.

In the 2025 fiscal year, Riverside County and the County Continuum of Care received the same amount of funding it received in 2026.

Riverside city officials said they received $10.3 million from the state, which is what the city received in 2025, according to a city report. It is also its sixth round of HHAP funding.

The city’s 2025-2026 fiscal year budget for its housing and human services department is nearly $20.2 million.

At least 10% of the city’s HHAP allocation is mandatory to use towards services for homeless youth and up to 7% can be used for administrative costs.

The city plans to allocate $3.5 million to rapid rehousing, $1.5 million to its permanent housing and housing solutions program, $500,000 to its prevention and shelter program, $3,770,000 to interim housing, $350,000 to outreach and $724,830 for administrative costs, according to the report.

The $20.4 million in HHAP city/county funding is separate from the $20.1 million in state funding, from a program called Homekey, that would have converted the Quality Inn Hotel in Riverside into homeless apartments. The Riverside City Council rejected the Homekey funding in January.

Riverside Housing and Human Services Director Michelle Davis said the state’s Homekey program is “completely different.” That program focuses on transforming hotels, motels and more into permanent or interim homeless housing.

“We’re also having conversations with our subregional partners to talk about how we can help them stand up services within their own cities as a regional collaboration,” Davis said.

According to the January 2025 Point in Count, Riverside had about 335 homeless people per 100,000 residents, compared to 188 homeless people per every 100,000 Riverside County residents. Last year, Riverside measured an 11% rise in homeless residents, outpacing the county's 7% gain.

In comparison, in 2024, there were 474 homeless people for every 100,000 California residents and 226 homeless residents for every 100,000 people in the United States.

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This story was originally published April 18, 2026 at 6:09 AM.