Press Room

ATTLEBORO - Southeastern Massachusetts has gotten a big influx of cash to help battle homelessness.

The United Way of Greater Attleboro and Taunton won a $350,000 grant from the Paul and Phyllis Fireman Foundation to help the cities of Attleboro, Taunton, Fall River and New Bedford and surrounding towns to help "divert, prevent and eliminate homelessness and housing insecurities for individuals and families."

People who have been housed temporarily in hotels and motels will be one of the groups targeted for assistance.

The money will be administered by the newly formed South Coast Regional Network to End Homelessness.

A meeting is scheduled for Tuesday in Raynham to talk in more detail about how the money will be spent, United Way President Dianne DePippo said. "The realization of this grant represents months of hard work and the success of a newly formed regional partnership focused entirely on issues of housing and homelessness," she said.

"This grant allows our regions to work better together to communicate, coordinate and intervene with a goal of permanent housing and stabilization for individuals and families that have been temporarily housed in motels all over the state at an increasingly alarming rate."

The Paul and Phyllis Fireman Foundation is a family foundation based in Boston which dedicates a major share of funding resources to ending family homelessness as well as a number of other causes.

The foundation expected to give away $9.6 million last year, according to its Web site.