FISH will receive Christmas gift from government

A Carson City charity will receive a $33,961 Christmas gift from the federal government, officials said Saturday.

Friends In Service Helping is one of the organizations receiving part of $900 million announced by President Bill Clinton on Christmas Day, said Wayne Waite of the Reno office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Nevada will get $3.7 million in grants to help homeless people become self-sufficient through job training and drug treatment, President Clinton announced.

The bulk of the funds will go to non-profit groups to help an estimated 12,000 to 18,000 homeless people in the Las Vegas Valley.

Nationally, the Department of Housing and Urban Development is giving states, communities and groups $900 million to help some 245,000 homeless Americans.

About $750 million will be spent on long-term programs designed to keep homeless people off the streets by providing drug treatment, job training and other social services.

The remaining $150 million will go to provide shelter and food on a short-term basis to the needy.

The White House's announcement landed squarely in the middle of one of the nation's most competitive Senate races.

New York City is to receive about $60.5 million of the $900 million, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. But city agencies won't have much say in how it is spent because Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo announced this week that HUD would hand out the money itself.

Cuomo said he acted after a federal court ruled that city officials demonstrated a pattern of antagonism and acted with ''retaliatory intent'' against a non-profit group, costing the organization $2.4 million in federal funds.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said the move was politically motivated and designed to help his likely Senate opponent, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.