The city is putting $25,000 into a relief fund for Houston artists who have lost business during the coronavirus pandemic, Mayor Sylvester Turner announced Tuesday in a news release.

The venture, dubbed the Greater Houston Area Arts Relief Fund, will operate through the Houston Arts Alliance, a nonprofit arts and culture agency under contract with the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs.

It will receive funds from the city’s hotel occupancy tax, a portion of which is devoted to Houston arts programs. The Houston Arts Alliance has also set up a GoFundMe page, through which people can make tax-deductible contributions, to support the relief fund. Created April 1, the page had collected about $32,000 from more than 100 donors by Tuesday morning.

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The fund is the first of “several opportunities that will be announced over the coming weeks to accelerate art projects” in response to the coronavirus crisis, according to Turner’s office.

"Artists and the cultural community are deeply woven into the fabric of Houston—they give our city its soul," Turner said in a statement. "They were among the first to cancel events and gatherings to help protect residents from COVID-19, and many have stepped forward in response to the crisis with virtual programs to promote critical social distancing and by making protective masks."

Debbie McNulty, director of the Mayor's Office of Cultural Affairs, said the relief fund "gives us a much-needed way to organize local fundraising and leverage our existing grant making system for this part of our response."

The city also has launched a web page, houstonrecovers.org/covid19, to help residents find resources and financial help related to the coronavirus crisis.

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