All Reynaldo Peppars wanted was another chance to make a good life for himself and his two young daughters. When his wife left him and he had trouble finding a job after spending years as a homemaker, Peppars moved from Clear Lake back to San Francisco, where he’d spent most of his 54 years and was sure he could make his way.

Instead, he wound up on the streets, slowed by the aftereffects of a recent heart attack and limited by government assistance that was too paltry to pay rent in the phenomenally expensive city by the bay.

That was five months ago. And if not for an innovative statewide program that began filling in welfare gaps this year so people like Peppars can have housing while they look for work, he would have stayed on the streets instead of living in a Turk Street apartment with his daughters, ages 13 and 6.

“Life is so good now it’s hard for me to believe,” said Peppars, who spends his days in job-hunt training programs. “I would still be pillar to post with my daughters, sleeping on couches and in shelters, if not for the help this program gave us.”

The program that helped him, called the CalWORKS Housing Support Program, is finishing its first year of existence — and it’s been so successful, welfare managers say, that its funding should be more than doubled. That means ramping up from $20 million this year to $50 million next year.

Heading to governor

CalWORKS is the state’s welfare program for needy families. The $50 million funding request is on track to be sent to Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday with the rest of the state budget for consideration.

The governor isn’t tipping his hand on what he will retain in the budget by his signing deadline of the end of June. But housing and welfare advocates around the state are urging him and legislators to authorize all $50 million. There has been no organized opposition.

Trent Rhorer, San Francisco’s human services director, said the $2 million allocated to the city has moved 100 homeless families inside, and will help keep them there for up to a year after their welfare ends. A waiting list for the housing grants has 380 families on it.

Paying the rent

CalWORKS pays for job training, child care and transportation for families while the parents find work, but the welfare program was never designed to cover full rent, Rhorer said.

“We are increasingly finding more and more homeless families on CalWORKS,” Rhorer said. “And to expect a family to engage in job hunts and training and to get their kids to school while they’re sleeping in their car, shelters or the street, worried about where they will be each night, is unrealistic.

“This new program has been an enormous help.”

The housing help amounts to an average of $900 a month per family, and can go up to $1,500. The average San Francisco rent is about $4,000 a month, but there is still lower-end housing where welfare can land a family in decent, clean digs.

Peppars’ small apartment, for instance, rents for $1,200 a month. His CalWORKS housing grant pays all but $172 of it. That leaves him enough of his other income — $490 in regular CalWORKS, $877 in federal disability — to buy food, clothes, school supplies and the other necessities of life.

“I actually have time to train and look for a job now,” Peppars said. He worked 28 years as a security guard before staying home with his kids, “and I’d like to get back to that. But really, I’ll take anything. I’m ready to work.”

Forty-two of California’s 58 counties applied for the $20 million when the housing program began in July 2014, but only 20 received grants. If all 42 counties’ applications had been funded, they would have totaled $52 million — hence this year’s $50 million request.

Alameda County got $1.3 million and Contra Costa County got $1 million, and each county has also helped about 100 families so far.

Lori Cox, Alameda County’s Social Services Agency director, said housing in the East Bay is cheaper than in San Francisco, but that’s no consolation for anyone who’s been unemployed or otherwise struggling long enough to need CalWORKS.

Still pricey

“Here in the East Bay, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment is close to $2,000 a month and expected to increase,” Cox said. “It’s difficult enough for low- to moderate-wage earners, but for this population (the mostly unemployed CalWORKS recipients), it’s nearly impossible to find stable housing without federal or state intervention.”

John Bauters, policy director of the Housing California advocacy nonprofit, said the new program is on track to serve 3,300 families by the end of June. The extra $30 million being requested for next year would add 4,500 families to the mix.

“The whole goal of CalWORKS is to help people get by modestly while they work to be self-sustaining and independent — not to be on welfare for the rest of their lives,” Bauters said. “But the missing piece there has been housing. We need this.”

Kevin Fagan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: kfagan@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @KevinChron