Richmond’s Water Crisis Fund — created to provide financial aid to city residents who lost money or couldn’t pay bills due to the water plant failure earlier this month — will begin accepting applications today.

The exact details on who will qualify and how much assistance they can expect to receive have not been announced, but additional information is expected to be released later today. Once the application process goes live, people will be able to apply online and over the phone.

The exact size of the fund is unclear. But city officials have said they’re effectively repurposing a family crisis fund that the city has already allocated nearly $1.2 million to for the current budget year. That money is released in installments. After an upcoming installment of almost $450,000, the crisis fund is expected to have around $650,000 in city money, according to officials.

After cancelling his inauguration festivities to deal with the water crisis, Mayor Danny Avula also made a $25,000 contribution to the fund from his PAC account.

Here are a few specifics that have been revealed about the fund, which is accepting donations through the United Way of Greater Richmond and Petersburg:

• The fund will only be open to city residents with a “demonstrated financial need.”
• The fund will not give cash directly to recipients, but will instead be used to make payments to third parties to help cover participants’ bills.
• Eligible expenses include rent, mortgage payments, health expenses, child care, non-city utility bills and missed car loan payments, according to the city.

The relief fund apparently can’t be used to cover Richmond Department of Public Utilities bills — which is how residents pay for water usage — because that would result in the city effectively paying itself.

The city isn’t giving DPU customers a credit on their January water bills. In response to calls to give Richmonders a break by lowering or cancelling bills, officials have emphasized that residents wouldn’t be charged for water they didn’t use.

City officials have said they’re unclear on the size of the need for financial aid after the water emergency.

“A lot of people were actually able to return to work,” Mayor Danny Avula said at a news conference Wednesday. “And many businesses, like the small business that were impacted the most, have insurance policies. And so we've got to figure out what are the layers of support that can help those businesses, and how much of that is ultimately gonna get passed to the workers who were depending on a paycheck.”

Avula previously said the city was exploring the possibility of seeking state or federal relief funds to assist businesses.

The mayor said city officials haven’t “closed ourselves off” to the possibility of putting up more funding for relief, but said he sees an opportunity for broader philanthropic support to help those impacted.

Avula said the city wants to be “really empathetic” toward those who took on extra costs in January from smaller things like buying bottled water or using more water to fill up their bathtubs when service was disrupted. But the city’s primary focus, he said, is on those whose situations are dire enough they can’t afford to pay important bills.

“I don't know that we're going to have a great answer for every different scenario that people present,” Avula said. “But we really want to focus on people who, particularly in their housing situations, might be at risk.”

The city is heading into what’s expected to be a tight budget cycle. 

Last fall, the City Council fiercely debated ways to mitigate the rapid growth in Richmond property tax bills, with several members arguing the city cannot keep expecting residents to pay more and more each year. The full price tag of the water crisis and the emergency repairs the city had to make at the water plant are still unknown, but the city’s water infrastructure is funded primarily through monthly utility bills. Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras also recently put out a budget proposal that envisions a $43.7 million increase in operating expenses.

Against that backdrop, the city has not made new funding commitments for water relief. Whether more funding is needed could become clearer once officials have a better sense of how many people are applying for assistance and can show the water crisis directly harmed them financially.

Barbara Sipe, the CEO of the regional United Way, said the water relief effort aligns with her organization’s past history of acting as a “community fundraiser” after a local crisis or natural disaster. 

“I saw on social media an outpouring of people from across this region that said, ‘I’ve been able to work all week and my water is running. But I feel so bad for the people I know can’t. How can I help?’” Sipe said in an interview.

She said the organization has seen bursts of donations to the fund each time it gets covered in the local media.

“I think once the application opens up and we can also have more detail, I think that’s going to be a really important moment to push more information,” she said.

The city is expected to announce those details later today.