$3,000 Grants Open for East L.A. Businesses. The County's Map Decides Who's In.

Businesses outside the county's designated impact areas for the Lineage Fire and the East Los Angeles oil spill can't apply.

Small businesses in parts of East Los Angeles can apply for grants of up to $3,000 to cover losses from a fire and an oil spill earlier this year. Applications opened September 17, 2026, and close October 1, 2026, the Los Angeles County Department of Economic Opportunity announced.

Then geography takes over. A store that lost a week of customers but sits a block outside a county-designated impact area can't apply at all — the county states that exclusion flatly in its own announcement. The boundary maps are posted alongside the application, and businesses are told to check them before filling anything out.

The county dates the Lineage Fire to June 17, 2026, and the East Los Angeles oil spill to May 22, 2026, near East Cesar E. Chavez Avenue and North Eastern Avenue.

Board Chair and First District Supervisor Hilda L. Solis said she directed First District funds to set up the program. “Small businesses should not be left to absorb the financial damage caused by an emergency they did not create,” she said in the county's announcement.

Beyond the address, the county lists several tests an applicant has to clear:

• the business must have been open at an eligible address 30 days or more before the incident;
• 100 or fewer employees;
• annual gross receipts of $6 million or less;
• documentation of, or an attestation to, a qualifying disruption tied to the fire or the spill.

Award size depends on business type, and $3,000 is the ceiling, not the standard check.

If more eligible businesses apply than there's money for, the county says it will run a prioritization process and a weighted lottery to pick winners, with a waitlist for applicants who don't get picked and might if more money turns up. How much money is in the program hasn't been stated.

The applications run through AidKit, the county's grant administrator, which is also handling payment processing. Southern California Grantmakers is the fiscal sponsor. The department's Office of Small Business says it will do direct outreach and help owners through intake.

Kelly LoBianco, director of the Department of Economic Opportunity, framed the losses as the slow kind. Small businesses “can lose customers, revenue, and days or weeks of operations that are difficult to make up,” she said in the announcement.

Eligibility rules, the impact-area maps and the application itself are at opportunity.lacounty.gov/sbrgeastla. The window shuts October 1, 2026.

Source: lacounty.gov, retrieved September 22, 2026.