By Meera Pal

Correspondent

The face of homelessness in the Tri-Valley often looks a lot like the family who used to live down the block.

“We have a homeless population (in the Tri-Valley) of people who are desperately trying make it,” said Jean Prasher, Livermore’s human services manager. “But, it’s hard when housing is expensive and it’s hard in this economy with a lack of jobs.”

An influx of federal stimulus money to a local homeless prevention and re-housing program may soon make life a little bit easier for the area’s homeless.

Livermore and Pleasanton recently received a $900,000 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant to combat homelessness in the valley. And, the city of Dublin will use its allocation of homeless prevention funding from Alameda County to join in. All funds will be pooled in a coordinated Tri-Valley program.

“If we all used our money separately, we wouldn’t have the same impact,” said Jerri Ram, Dublin’s community development director. “And, with homelessness & people don’t really have a home. They’re not necessarily residents of Dublin, Pleasanton or Livermore. This is a regional problem.”

The grant, administered by the state Department of Housing and Community Development, will help those at risk of losing their homes with money for things such as back rent or utility bills. It will

“This is intended to help the recently homeless and those on the verge of becoming homeless. It’s not intended to address the chronic homeless population,” said Scott Ericson, Pleasanton’s housing specialist.

To get funds from the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing grant, recipients must work with a case manager to create a plan for the future, Prasher said.

“We don’t want people to just take the money,” she said. “We want to know ’How did you get into this place and how can we stabilize the situation?’ ”

To better leverage the three-year grant, the Tri-Valley cities are collaborating with other Alameda County cities. San Leandro and Union City also received grants under the Recovery Act, of $1.2 million and $500,000, respectively.

“These dollars are going to touch every corner of the county,” said Elaine de Coligny, executive director of Every One Home, an Alameda County program for the homeless.

“One of the reasons (Alameda County cities) were so competitive at the state level is because we are working together. Everyone with a housing crisis will access the same services, the same way,” she said.

After Nov. 2, anyone in Alameda County can call 211 for homeless prevention counseling or assistance. Counselors will take calls 24 hours a day.

With specially designed screening questions developed by Every One Home, counselors will refer callers to one of six in-county Housing Resource Centers. Everyone will work with a case manager to set the best financial course of action.

“Our goal is to give people enough (money), and not more, to be stably housed. & If they can do it with one-time assistance, great. If they need three months of rent, we will do that,” de Coligny said

Even with an average income of $103,000 in Livermore, Dublin and Pleasanton, homelessness is a considerable Tri-Valley problem, de Coligny said. County records show roughly 750 people in the area report being homeless.

“It’s certainly not on the same scale as say, Berkeley or Oakland,” she said. “A lot of the homelessness we’re going to see (here) is among families with children.”

In 2003, 74 percent of the valley’s homeless population was families with children. By 2009, that number dropped to 56 percent.

Countywide, families with children are 41 percent of the homeless, de Coligny said.

“A lot of the homelessness we’re going to see in c(eastern Alameda County) are folks who are living in their cars, staying at campgrounds and couch-surfing,” she said.

Over the next three years, Every One Home will continue to coordinate the county’s homelessness prevention efforts and lead an outreach effort to social care programs that interact with people who could benefit from homeless assistance.