The Emergency Broadband Benefit is an FCC program to help households struggling to pay for internet service during the pandemic. This benefit connects eligible households to jobs, critical healthcare services, and virtual classrooms.
 
Eligible consumers can receive:

• Up to $50 per month on Home Internet service 
• Up to $75 per month for households on qualifying Tribal Lands
• One-time discount of up to $100 for a computer or a tablet (offered in California by human-I-T when buying their broadband service) 

 
The Emergency Broadband Benefit is limited to one monthly service discount and one device discount per household.
 
Qualifications and Applications
Visit https://www.internetforallnow.org/applytoday for an overview of qualifications and steps to apply. One household member must meet one of the criteria listed.

Find a Broadband Provider
Customers without internet: Call 866-696-8748 to help you compare your options.

Customers with internet: Check with your provider … [read more]

Liberty Utilities has implemented an Emergency Disaster Relief Program that provides protections to customers affected by wildfire and other natural disasters. In the event that a State of Emergency is declared at the state or federal level, protections would be available to customers who experience loss or disruption of the delivery or receipt of utility service and/or resulted in the degradation of the quality of utility service.

If these criteria are met, Liberty Utilities will:

• Waive deposit requirements for residents seeking to re-establish service for one year and expedite move-in and move-out service requests
• Stop estimated energy usage for billing attributed to the time period when the home/unit was unoccupied as a result of the emergency
• Discontinue billing
• Prorate any monthly access charge or minimum charges
• Implement payment plan options for residential customers
• Suspend disconnection for non-payment and associated fees, waiver of deposit and late fee requirements
• Provide su…

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The Water Well Trust (WWT) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization created by the Water Systems Council. With its partner it provides funding for wells for low‐income families that need safe drinking water. WWT serves people in the United States who live primarily in rural, unincorporated areas or minority communities that may be isolated and difficult to reach. They assist low‐income families that cannot afford to pay for public water supplies, and those who live in areas where the extension of public water supplies to serve them doesn’t make economic sense for them, for the public water supply owners, for federal, state or local funding sources.

Beneficiaries of the Water Well Trust are low-income families or individuals that have wells that are no longer functioning properly, have contamination issues that render the well unusable, or have no well or safe water source. The Water Well Trust also has funding for septic systems.

PG&E Geographic Zones - https://www.pge.com/pge_global/common/pdfs/safety/emergency-preparedness/natural-disaster/wildfires/2019-PGE-Geographic-Zones.pdf.

Areas of Nevada and Placer Counties that are served by PG&E are in Zone 5.

Zone outlines are based on the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) High Fire Threat Map https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/firethreatmaps/ (info about the map). CPUC Fire Map is here: https://ia.cpuc.ca.gov/firemap/

People can sign up for PSPS outage notifications if they have a PG&E account, if they do not have a PG&E account, or if they want notifications for one or more other addresses (work, school, etc.). https://pgealerts.alerts.pge.com/outages/psps-address-alert/

More info:
https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/your-account/account-management/manage-your-account/alerts-and-notifications/update-your-contact-information.page?utm_source=spm-gs&utm_campaign=pge-psps&utm_medium=trfc-allpge-kw-pub-a-en&utm_content=search-SPMAAC884ED&gclid=CjwKCAiAv_KMBhAzEiwAs-rX1HMusJIJAxsy7R-ruAg5tExoHhdB4-VxdCjVAp1L4TbBYS4FUK0DphoCRUcQAvD_BwE

Internet Essentials is a program that provides low-cost internet for eligible households. https://www.internetessentials.com/
 
You may qualify for Internet Essentials if you are eligible for public assistance programs such as the National School Lunch Program, Housing Assistance, Medicaid, SNAP, SSI, and others.

Lifeline is the FCC's program to help make communications services more affordable for low-income consumers. Lifeline provides subscribers a discount on monthly telephone service, broadband Internet service, or bundled voice-broadband packages purchased from participating wireline or wireless providers. The discount helps ensure that low-income consumers can afford 21st century broadband and the access it provides to jobs, healthcare, and educational resources.

Lifeline Program Administrator
Universal Service Administrative Company
USAC's Lifeline Support Center for assistance at 1-800-234-9473 or lifelinesupport@usac.org
https://www.usac.org/lifeline/additional-requirements/covid-19-response/

EveryoneON offers options of home Internet service and computers for low-income individuals and families.

Visit https://www.everyoneon.org/find-offers and use the zip code search tool to find information about low-cost Internet service in your area and information about low-cost computers.

MEDICAL BASELINE PROGRAM
Provides residential customers dependent on life-support equipment and/or special heating and cooling needs due to certain medical conditions with approximately 500 kilowatt hours (kwh) of electricity and/or 25 therms per month of gas at the lowest price, in addition to the standard baseline quantities.

HOW TO APPLY - https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/save-energy-money/help-paying-your-bill/longer-term-assistance/medical-condition-related/medical-baseline-allowance/medical-baseline-allowance.page
 
QUALIFYING MEDICAL DEVICES (PARTIAL LIST) - https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/save-energy-money/help-paying-your-bill/longer-term-assistance/medical-condition-related/medical-baseline-allowance/life-support-equipment.page

PLEASE NOTE: Qualifying medical devices include any medical device used to sustain life. Devices include equipment used for mobility, per a licensed medical practitioner. Devices are for home use only. Devices used for t… [read more]

PG&E outages map is here: https://pgealerts.alerts.pge.com/outagecenter/

Outage map with info specific to Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) events is here: https://pgealerts.alerts.pge.com/outages/map/