OFFICIALS TAKE ON HOMELESSNESS.

Byline: Dan Laidman Staff Writer

Officials seized on a federal grant award Wednesday to announce plans to attack chronic homelessness by beefing up housing and programs for mental illness and drug and alcohol abuse prevention.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority drew more than $60 million from the federal government to fund hundreds of local projects, up from $55 million last year.

``I would say it's incredible in this era where there's been pretty large or flat funding for domestic programs in general,'' said Mitchell Netburn, executive director of LAHSA, a city-county agency that works with service providers.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced the grant at a press conference, flanked by officials including Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles.

Villaraigosa has added money to an affordable-housing fund and called for a large housing bond, while the City Council created a committee this week to deal with homelessness.

``The federal government is recognizing there's a new commitment,'' the mayor said.

The money is part of a large pot already appropriated by Congress. The Department of Housing and Urban Development increased Los Angeles' grant on the basis of an application LAHSA submitted in June.

The recent activities of Los Angeles officials also helped, said Phil Mangano, executive director of the White House Interagency Council on Homelessness, which coordinates the activities of numerous federal departments.

``This increase in funding comes because there is support for the mayor's efforts to address homelessness and his work to develop a comprehensive 10-year plan to combat homelessness,'' he said in a prepared statement. ``This new investment by HUD will support Mayor Villaraigosa's vision to make a visible and measurable change in the neighborhoods and streets of Los Angeles.''

The additional money in this year's grant will pay for 426 new shelter beds, Netburn said, 267 of which will be exclusively for the chronically homeless, or those who have been on the streets for a protracted period.

The cities that have had the most success in reducing homelessness have focused on such long-term homeless individuals, Villaraigosa said. He said the city's strategy will be to try to increase funding for transitional and permanent supportive housing projects.

Nunez said he would work to bring in more state money, while Villaraigosa said state action might also be needed to encourage a dispersal of social services throughout the Los Angeles region.

Los Angeles Police Department officials have suggested that smaller jurisdictions are bringing homeless people to downtown Los Angeles, where there is a concentration of services.

Downtown's Skid Row area is notorious for its squalor, with four homeless people dying there on Monday alone, most of drug overdoses, said LAPD Capt. Andrew Smith.

The LAPD is increasing patrols in Skid Row while installing cameras to deter drug dealers, Smith said.

Dan Laidman, [phone]

dan.laidman(at)dailynews.com