Grants to Aid Homeless Are Announced : Budget: Over $400 million will go to 187 programs in 44 states, the White House said. California gets largest share, with $75 million.

The Clinton Administration announced an array of federal grants Wednesday for programs that serve the homeless and confirmed plans to seek a significant increase in funds for homeless services in the 1995 budget.

Grants totaling $411 million will go to 187 programs fighting homelessness in 44 states, the White House said. California programs received the largest part of the grant money, nearly $75 million. New York was second, with about $40 million.

Henry G. Cisneros, secretary of housing and urban development, also said that the White House had “concurred” with his request for a minimum of $1.1 billion for homeless programs, $823 million more than was allotted in Clinton’s first budget and $550 million more than the last George Bush Administration budget.

The Clinton Administration’s decision to request more money to help the homeless at a time when other programs are being cut in part reflects the success of a high-profile campaign by Cisneros to bring more attention to the problem.

With the greater investment, though, comes more pressure on the department and the Administration to produce measurable improvements in what has been a steadily worsening problem.

“That’s a pretty powerful increase, and there are not many areas of the federal government that are going to see that kind of increase,” Cisneros said.

The amount is still subject to further review, however, and to congressional approval.

In outlining the Administration’s otherwise austere budget for 1995, which will be introduced in Congress early next year, Leon E. Panetta, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said that Cisneros had been very persuasive about the need for more money. However, he indicated that the Administration would not be able to double the funding, as the secretary had requested.

“The secretary made a very good argument for why he needed additional resources there, and we will try to provide some additional resources in that area,” Panetta said.

But because of the “constrictions of the budget,” he added, “it will not be as much as the secretary wanted.”

The money for the grants awarded Wednesday was provided in President Bush’s 1993 budget but was never spent. The decisions on which groups should receive them were made by the Clinton Administration.

In outlining the specific awards in a White House ceremony, President Clinton said that they represent “a different approach to what has become our most painful and, as a country, I think one of our most embarrassing social problems.”

“We have tried to look beyond the issue of temporary shelters to the question of permanent relief from the condition of homelessness.”

Priority was given to programs that serve families, which constitute an increasingly large proportion of the homeless population, and address not only immediate shelter needs but also long-term services, according to Andrew Cuomo, an assistant secretary of housing and urban development.

The grants will provide single-room occupancy housing and housing that is part of special services designed to help homeless people who have substance abuse problems, suffer mental illness or need job training.

Of the 11,000 units that will be created with these grants, 4,250 will be for families.

A new survey of cities by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, released Tuesday, indicated that 43% of the homeless population is made up of families.

“Most programs were geared toward emergency shelter: Get people off the streets, get them ‘three hots and a cot,’ as the expression was,” Cuomo said. “This approach says: That’s not enough. . . . You have people with very serious problems, and if you don’t address the problems you’re not helping anyone. If someone has a mental health problem, a cot isn’t enough. If someone has a substance abuse problem, a cot isn’t enough.”