Zenobia Jennings moved into her Chula Vista apartment this August. Her husband and three teenage boys came, too. The place was furnished, one of her sons was preparing to join the Air Force and after several hospitalizations Jennings felt increasingly healthy. Things were looking up. Their story almost took a very different turn. Jennings is one of hundreds of people who’ve so far received help through a recently expanded program for residents about to be evicted or who recently ended up on the streets. The approach, known as diversion, generally offers a single payment that can cover anything from an apartment deposit to car repairs, and proponents believe it can serve as a cheaper method for reducing homelessness. “I’ve been working — and on my own and in my own place — since I was 16,” Jennings, 38, said Monday at a press conference downtown. “To have to experience this homelessness for 60 days was scary.” Around a year ago, the Regional Task Force on Homelessness annually had only around $300,000 for diversion efforts, which by definition are less noticeable than, say, encampment sweeps or new shelters. “Diversion is an intervention that is not deeply funded,” said Tamera Kohler, the task force’s CEO. That pot of money received a boost when San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer worked with a number of local governments and philanthropic groups to round up another $1 million. From January through July, the money helped 244 people either stave off an eviction or get back into permanent housing, officials said. Each household got an average of $2,863. Leaders did not track how many received money without returning to stable housing, mainly because a number of those cases are ongoing. About $598,000 of the $1 million has so far been spent. Residents in need should call 211 or local outreach organizations to see if they qualify. “There’s still money to help people,” said Lawson-Remer, who’s running for re-election in November. What to do once funding runs low is one of a number of questions the county must answer about homelessness, which has grown every month for more than two straight years. The county Board of Supervisors is expected to soon announce the results of an audit examining the effectiveness of all homelessness spending as well as consider a camping ban that would boost penalties for sleeping outside. At the same time, blowback from neighbors has derailed several shelter proposals. Jennings, the woman from Chula Vista, said she almost didn’t ask for help. The family had their own apartment in Rancho Bernardo as recently as May, and they left only for an opportunity to buy a home in Texas. But that quickly fell through — Jennings thinks they were hurt by bad credit — and soon everyone was packed into an Airbnb. Storage costs hurt their bank account. So did medical bills. Jennings is often in the hospital with intestinal ulcers and caring for her has kept her husband from working. Only after weeks spent in a hotel and on friends’ couches did Jennings start making calls, first to 211 and then to Alpha Project. The nonprofit ultimately gave the family about $800 from the diversion fund for an apartment deposit and first month’s rent at an affordable housing complex. Jennings said she’s slowly unclenching from the stress of the last few months. “We’re still trying to catch up on bills,” she said. But “we’re going in the right direction.”