Tulare County details CalWORKs housing help, limits for families experiencing homelessness

Laurie Catuto, CalWORKs program specialist for the Tulare County Health and Human Services Agency, told the Tulare County Homeless Task Force that CalWORKs provides temporary and permanent housing assistance only to families with an eligible child and that program rules and recent state changes limit who can receive help and for how long.

"First of all, for the CalWORKS program, there has to be a child in the home, in the family," Catuto said, describing the program's core eligibility requirement. She said a child must be "deprived" of parental care or support — for example, because a parent in the household is unemployed or absent — for the family to qualify.

Catuto gave a line-by-line explanation of the county's housing assistance offerings and the limits the county must follow. She said temporary hotel or shared housing is available for up to 16 days at up to $85 per day (with an additional $15 per day for a fifth household member), and that permanent-assistance payments cover last month's rent,…