$6.3 Million Granted to Aid O.C. Homeless : Assistance: Money is part of $900 million to be distributed by HUD. In one program, a La Habra inn is to be renovated to accommodate 60 people.

WASHINGTON — Federal officials announced Monday that two Orange County homeless assistance programs will receive about $6.3 million in grants, part of $900 million being awarded nationwide by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The Community Housing Assistance Program of Orange will receive about $4.3 million and Aragon Affordable Housing Inc. will get just over $2 million as part of what officials call the largest effort to fund homeless programs in federal history.

Nationwide, 818 projects were funded out of about 3,000 applications submitted earlier this year, said Herbert Roberts, director for HUD’s community planning and development division.

Roberts said the Community Housing Assistance Program will use its grant to purchase and renovate the Sunset Inn in the 1000 block of Beach Boulevard in La Habra to accommodate about 60 homeless people at a time. Staffers will also provide services such as job training and employment counseling.

“Shelter alone is not going to solve the problem,” Roberts said. “It’s continual care and continual outreach. These people may be traumatized by whatever circumstances and shelter may be the least of their problems.”

Aragon will also use the money for a project to help the homeless, but specifics were not available Monday.

Tim Shaw, executive director of the Orange County Homeless Issues Task Force, which helped the county apply for the grants, said Monday he is disappointed that the county didn’t get more money.

“There’s a perception that we don’t have poverty here,” Shaw said. “In a sense, it’s more insidious because we’re in the shadow of great wealth.”

He said the county has only about 1,000 shelter beds for the homeless, while there are 12,000 to 15,000 homeless people. To further limit existing resources, the county has cut back on funding since its bankruptcy filing late last year, he said.

HUD Secretary Henry G. Cisneros said Monday that homeless funding has tripled since 1993, from $572 million to its current level of $1.6 billion.

“It should be intolerable to everyone in America that hundreds of thousands of people in this nation have no place to call home,” Cisneros said.

Funneled through a network of local agencies and nonprofit organizations, the grants are expected to aid an estimated 260,000 homeless people nationwide, according to federal officials.

HUD officials stressed that they intend the grant program--slated to pay for housing, rental assistance, drug treatment and job counseling services for homeless families and individuals--to help move homeless people off the streets into self-sufficient living arrangements permanently.

While only two programs in Orange County were awarded funding, a coalition of 50 groups in the Los Angeles area helped bring that county $71 million in grants. The homeless population of Los Angeles County has been estimated at 75,000.

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Money for Homeless Two Orange County agencies received about $6.3 million for homeless services from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. What Orange County got: *

* Aragon Affordable Housing Inc., Santa Ana: $2.124 million * Community Housing Assistance Program, La Habra: $4.248 million *

Counties Compared Four Southern California counties received a total of $94.3 million. Here’s how the total was split: *

* Los Angeles: $71.0 million * Orange: $6.3 million * San Diego: $15.8 million * Ventura: $1.1 million Source: HUD