Homeowners in California can get up to $3,000 grants to help pay for upgrades to protect their homes from earthquakes.
The “Earthquake Brace + Bolt” (EBB) grants, administered by the California Residential Mitigation Program (CRMP), are available to eligible homeowners to help offset the cost of seismic retrofits.
The retrofits involve either the foundation of homes being “bolted” to the frame or reinforcing “cripple” walls in the crawl space under the house with plywood, according to the program’s website. “This helps prevent the house from sliding or toppling off its foundation during an earthquake,” the website says.
The EBB grants are available to homeowners in hundreds of designated ZIP codes around California.
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Applicants must meet a number of criteria, including owning and living in the house they intend to retrofit. The house must also have been built before 1980 and have a raised foundation or crawl space underneath it.
Retrofits can cost up to around $7,000, but supplemental grants that could cover up to 100 percent of the costs are available to those who meet the EBB grant requirements and have a household income of $87,360 or less.
To qualify for a lottery to get the grants, homeowners have until February 21 to apply.
The EBB program has helped more than 23,000 homeowners protect their homes against earthquake damage in the decade since it began, according to a press release issued earlier in January.
The release said that about 300 new ZIP codes have been added to the program, meaning more than $20 million in grant funding will now be available to help offset the costs of the seismic retrofits to homeowners in a total of 815 ZIP codes. New ZIP codes added to the program in 2024 include parts of Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Berkeley.
According to officials, there are more than 1.2 million houses in California that were built before 1980 in high-risk areas that are vulnerable to collapse or destruction during a strong earthquake.
“California has an ever-present risk of earthquakes and no one knows when or where the next Big One might hit,” Janiele Maffei, chief mitigation officer of the California Earthquake Authority and the executive director of CRMP, said in a statement.
“But we know older homes near faults are at greater risk if they haven’t been strengthened with a seismic retrofit.”
Maffei said that “by expanding to 815 ZIP Codes, we’re broadening our reach to help more homeowners safeguard their families and properties. I strongly encourage homeowners to seize this opportunity and join the growing community of Californians who’ve taken this vital step towards resilience.”
Newsweek has contacted the California Earthquake Authority.
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