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Economy

Stimulus Money Helps Families On The Verge Of Eviction

People pack-up their belongings after staying the night on the street on December 5, 2009.
Wendy Fry
People pack-up their belongings after staying the night on the street on December 5, 2009.

More than a million dollars in federal stimulus funds have arrived to help a North County coalition keep families off the streets.

Laurin Pause of the Community Resource Center in Encinitas says grants earmarked for motel vouchers for homeless families ran out in the summer. That left agencies working with the homeless in North County with few options to help families who were evicted and facing life on the streets.

But Pause says four North County cities, Encinitas, Carlsbad, Vista and San Marcos now have $1.6 million of stimulus funding for homeless prevention over the next two and a half years.

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She says her agency began providing rental assistance this week to families on the verge of being evicted.

“We find,” she said, “that landlords who are in the eviction process, if they find out they can work with us, are very happy to provide information and work with us so that they don’t have to evict the family.”

Pause says the stimulus money will help her agency keep almost 200 families from being evicted and help 85 to 90 families find new homes.