An advocacy group has concluded that the city and county of Los Angeles have failed to make adequate progress on getting homeless people off the streets and into permanent housing, despite a 2022 settlement agreement in the wake of a federal lawsuit.
That assessment by the LA Alliance for Human Rights comes after the release of an audit ordered by the federal court for the Central District of California, where the group`s lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority was filed. The audit by Alvarez & Marsal found that even though funding for such programs was in the billions of dollars, the agencies involved provided little financial oversight of homeless services providers, wide ranges in resource allocations, overlapping responsibilities and missing contract information.
“Rather than aggressively fixing the broken homeless system, the city and county have prioritized protecting themselves from accountability,” the alliance said in a statement emailed to the Southern California Record. “In response to our motion, the court ordered an independent audit by Alvarez & Marsal. which has revealed unprecedented levels of financial waste, mismanagement and deception.”
The alliance filed a motion with the court to force local government agencies to comply with the 2022 legal settlement and to produce a plan for creating shelters and additional housing.
More than two-thirds of housing subsidies for “scattered sites” in the region could not produce records of their financial expenditures in the past year, according to the audit.
But the defendants’ response to the motion, which was filed last month, counters that the parties in the settlement agreement have agreed to a pause in complying with certain obligations in the wake of January’s deadly wildfires, which exacerbated the homeless crisis in the region.
“(The) alliance’s decision to file a motion to compel the very obligations that are currently paused is inappropriate given the express terms of Section 8.2 of the parties’ settlement agreement …” the defendants’ response to the alliance’s motion states. “(The) alliance’s rush to file this motion now is premature when the motion is entirely based on (the) alliance’s speculation of future noncompliance by the city, without any evidence of a current breach.”
The defendants’ legal response also stresses that the city’s current bed-creation requirement involves adding 12,915 beds by June of 2027, along with “aspirational goals” for hitting targets over the next two years.
“(The) alliance’s fear (that) the city might not comply with an obligation it still has over two years to meet does not justify (the) alliance’s motion,” the city response states. “Indeed, while both parties acknowledge that the financial impact of the wildfires has only worsened what was already a challenging financial environment for the city, there is no basis for speculating that the city will not comply with its settlement obligations.”
The defendants also indicated that the L.A. region faces undisputed financial challenges over the next fiscal year because of the impact of the fires on the economy, the resulting loss of tax revenue due to the destruction of businesses, reduced gross domestic product and wage losses. In turn, the parties will have to re-examine parts of the settlement agreement, according to the defendants’ legal response.
But the alliance sees the need for a course correction now in order to meet the agreement’s bottom line.
“Contracts are vague, unclear and often missing entirely,” the alliance argues. “Money is being funneled into a bureaucratic black hole, with no proof of services being provided.”