More homeless spending goes where no one can find it

Image by Susana Secretariat

LAist highlights recent calls by Southland auditors for data re: where the city of Los Angeles is spending millions of dollars that were supposed to go to the building of over 13,000 new shelter beds. This comes after lawsuits forced the city of LA into being more accountable and transparent re: homeless spending.

The comprehensive audit by the firm Alvarez & Marsal is related to a settlement reached almost two years ago in a long-running lawsuit between advocates for the unhoused and the city and county of L.A. That suit was filed by the L.A. Alliance For Human Rights. 

As part of that settlement, the city agreed to create nearly 13,000 new shelter and housing beds for unhoused Angelenos. The county separately agreed to create 3,000 mental health and addiction treatment beds.

Sign up to receive updates on Opp Now articles. Click HERE.

Auditors trying to track spending and outcomes on homelessness efforts in recent years told Carter in court Thursday that figuring out which providers were paid to achieve what outcomes has been like untangling a bowl of spaghetti. The city and county have provided some data, they said, but other requests have not been fulfilled.

While presenting an online dashboard still in progress to track L.A. homelessness spending, Mejia said requests his office submitted on Aug. 19 had only started to be fulfilled by LAHSA staff while in the middle of the court hearing.

“We just got an email in the last 20 minutes,” Mejia told the judge.

Carter chided homelessness officials for waiting so long to comply with data requests, saying: “Nothing seems to move until one or two days before we have a hearing.”

Read the whole story here.

Follow Opportunity Now on Twitter @svopportunity

Related:

• Case studies SF, Seattle: How so-called "homelessness services" non profits rip off cities

• SF wonders: why does city's homeless population increase just after homelessness spending soars?

• Expert: Five Things San Jose Council should demand of staff to get housing and homelessness programs back under fiscal and strategic control

Sign up to receive updates on Opp Now articles

Email Address:

First Name:

Last Name:

Opp Now enthusiastically welcomes smart, thoughtful, fair-minded, well-written comments from our readers. But be advised: we have zero interest in posting rants, ad hominems, poorly-argued screeds, transparently partisan yack, or the hateful name-calling often seen on other local websites. So if you've got a great idea that will add to the conversation, please send it in. If you're trolling or shilling for a candidate or initiative, forget it.