L.A. Agencies Win $71 Million in HUD Grants : Funding: Applying jointly, 44 nonprofit providers of service to the homeless get the area’s highest total ever.

When 20-year-old Ernesto Ortega had had enough of sleeping in his car and using drugs three months ago, he found a place that put a roof over his head, supported his struggle against addiction and helped him plan for a future in the Army.

“I’ll always be grateful to this place,” he said Friday as he stood in a conference room at Covenant House, a Hollywood shelter for homeless young adults.

The youth shelter was one of 44 Los Angeles-area nonprofit organizations awarded federal money Friday at a ceremony one observer called the Oscars of homelessness funding. Federal housing officials announced $71 million in grants to city and county social service providers--the highest amount of HUD awards ever for the Los Angeles area.

For the first time after years of fierce competition, 52 of the largest local service providers for the homeless made a joint application for a share of the $900 million in federal funds for the homeless. The result was a jump in funding, more than tripling the $20 million received last year.

“The homeless profession is about people who have been forgotten everywhere else,” Andrew Cuomo, assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, told a crowd of nail-biting social service workers at Covenant House before reading the list of grant winners. “It’s not just about the check.”

Money from HUD, an agency facing potential elimination by Congress, will pay for an array of services, including housing construction, drug treatment and job counseling. Programs in the city of Los Angeles will receive $48.2 million; county projects will receive about $11 million; homeless programs in other cities in the county, such as Long Beach and Pasadena, will receive an additional $12 million.

Cuomo said the key to netting such a large award was cooperation. Last year, area providers formed the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a partnership designed to oversee the area’s homeless and eliminate duplication of services. Racing against an April 7 deadline, the coalition compiled a 1,200-page application for about $50 million in federal homeless money. HUD announced that it would fund about $33.6 million of that request. The agency awarded an additional $37 million to city and county housing authorities.

“There’s always going to be more need than there is money,” said Eugene L. Boutilier, executive director of the authority. “We’re working together to find other resources.”