The Federal Emergency Management Agency has given South Dakota $250,000 dollars to supplement assistance programs for people suffering from non-disaster related emergencies. That includes providing food, shelter, rent, mortgage, and utility support to residents. Feeding South Dakota Executive Director Matt Gassen says the money was allocated to each county in the state, either directly or through a non-profit spread across several counties.
Through a formula created by the South Dakota Set-Aside Committee, the organization responsible for dispersing those funds, 19 different entities received assistance.
Gassen says that a minimum of $2800 dollars was required per allocation. Several counties were required to receive a specific amount of that money due to a federal decision. After those funds were taken off the top, the rest was divided. Gassen says two of those directly funded counties were reservation counties.
Gassen is the chair of the Set-Aside Committee and says that efforts to receive more FEMA dollars in the future would require a grassroots effort to do so. He says $250,000 dollars helps, but isn’t proportionate the high need in the state.
