HOMELESS AGENCIES TO GET MILLIONS.

Byline: Jason Kandel Staff Writer

than one hundred Los Angeles-area agencies that help the poor will receive a combined $43 million in federal HUD grant funds under a sweeping initiative to combat homelessness, officials said Saturday.

President Clinton in his Saturday morning radio address announced the $1 billion nationwide Department of Housing and Urban Development aid package which will help individuals and families obtain housing, job and living skills training.

icials say it is the largest homeless aid package in U.S. history and will help 2,600 programs and more than 200,000 individuals across the country.

``This is a planned obsolescence program,'' said HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo. ``These grants will be a great boost to the organizations dedicated to helping break the cycle of homelessness.''

Local homeless advocates reacted to the news with joy, but questioned how much of an impact the grants could have at a time of prospering economy and a tight housing market.

``Rents are high and the places that are accepting Section 8 vouchers are mostly all full,'' said Curley Holden, a staff member at Step Up On Second, a Santa Monica-based agency that offers services to the homeless, and which is slated to receive $322,569 from this round in federal HUD money.

``We've got a waiting list for housing two to four years long with a couple hundred names on it. And nobody already living in one of our 33 units is willing to give up their place.''

It is a trend found countywide, as shelters have increased the number of beds by 26 percent from 1997 to 2000 - 8,602 of which are in the city of Los Angeles - according to the Institute for Homelessness and Poverty at the Weingart Center, based in L.A.

Weingart officials estimate that more than 84,000 homeless individuals roam the streets of Los Angeles County nightly. Of that number, 12,400 are homeless families, officials said.

The lion's share of the federal funding, more than $895 million, will be awarded as Continuum of Care grants.

Generally these grants will be used to help build outreach and assessment treatment services, emergency shelters, transitional, permanent and supportive housing, among other services.

Since 1994, such grants have helped more than 400,000 homeless individuals get housing and jobs. Currently, about 6,000 community programs receive the funding.

The program has helped leverage $2 billion in additional public and private resources, and nearly 2,900 U.S. cities and counties have modeled their own programs after HUD's, officials said.

``The Continuum of Care initiative has made real and important progress toward creating local systems which truly meet the full range of needs of homeless people from street outreach to permanent housing,'' said Nan Roman, executive director of the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

Officials said $150 million will be awarded in the form of Emergency Shelter grants.