Disaster victims in Southern California can get up to $20,000 to pay mortgage payments under a state-funded program opening Thursday, June 12. 

California Housing Finance Agency has $105 million in mortgage assistance grants that will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

“You don’t have to pay this money back. It’s a grant,” said Rebecca Franklin, chief deputy director of the California Housing Finance Agency, or CalHFA.

To qualify, residents must earn no more than the median income in their counties — $140,700 a year in Los Angeles County, $137,150 a year in San Bernardino and Riverside counties and $180,300 in Orange County, according to the CalHFA website.

The grants will be available to residents whose homes have been destroyed or left uninhabitable by the January wildfires in Los Angeles County or by any other disaster that received a state or federal emergency declaration since January 2023.

For example, displaced victims of 2023 winter storms, Tropical Storm Hillary and five other California wildfires also qualify.