Homeless people who live in out-of-sight encampments in Vista, Calif., may soon find new homes thanks to a $1.8 million state grant.
The Vista City Council this month accepted a $1.8 million Encampment Resolution Grant from the state Interagency Council on Homelessness to create a new outreach team and fund rental assistance or other housing options for people living in encampments in the Buena Vista Watershed area off Hacienda Drive, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports.
Additional funding will be used to continue making improvements to the watershed area as a way of discouraging other homeless people from using the area for encampments, says Vista Housing Program Manager Sylvia Daniels.
"We do a lot of cleanups at those sites, but due to its nature and the size of it, and the sensitivity of the wildlife in the watershed, we are limited," she says. "So we thought this would be a great area for the project."
The city already has hauled trash out of the area and created a trail system with entry points alongside Hacienda Drive.
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Ganesh Natarajan is the Founder and Chairman of 5FWorld, a new platform for funding and developing start-ups, social enterprises and the skills eco-system in India. In the past two decades, he has built two of India’s high-growth software services companies – Aptech and Zensar – almost from scratch to global success.