City Officials Not Working in Residents/Homeless Best Interests

The City has failed to deal with the homeless on the streets.

The effectiveness of the money spent on the homeless by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) was questioned by the L.A. Alliance in 2020. A settlement agreement was reached in 2022 and the city promised to provide an additional 12,915 shelter beds by 2027.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter found the city had fallen behind and ordered an evidentiary hearing after auditors Alvarez & Marsal released a sweeping 82-page report that tracked nearly $2.3 billion in homelessness funding between June 2020 and June 2024. The report concluded fewer than one in four people placed into programs secured permanent housing, while nearly half returned to homelessness.

“This failure of financial integrity, programmatic oversight, and total dysfunction of the system has resulted in devastation on the streets,” attorney Elizabeth Mitchell, representing the LA Alliance, told the court during testimony.

The City was brought into Court this past March, and the judge chastised Mayor Karen Bass and other L.A. officials for failing to track billions of homelessness spending. Carter pointed to a series of LAHSA audits going back to 2007 that revealed the agency’s inability to properly track its spending.

It looked like the judge might order a receivership and in May, the law firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher was brought in two weeks before court proceedings to represent the City. The firm fielded nine attorneys supplemented by two city lawyers. The L.A. Alliance had a two-lawyer team.

The City Council initially approved a $900,000 contract with Gibson Dunn. During the hearing, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher hounded the Alliance team and accused them of being alarmist for suggesting there was waste.

Turns out the Alliance was right and is supported by a September 16 LAist story (“Investigation underway into claims LAist unearthed about top LA homeless services officials”) click here.

The story reported that L.A. County has commissioned a months-long outside investigation into allegations about current and former high-ranking officials at the L.A. Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), according to the county’s investigations chief.

The investigation started around May 23 and is being conducted by an outside investigator, according to Greg Hellmold, who heads the Office of County Investigations.

Two former high-ranking executives at LAHSA claimed former LAHSA CEO Va Lecia Adams Kellum wrongfully fired them in retaliation for pushing back on alleged misconduct by her and people she hired into high-ranking jobs.

Regardless of the court decision, the law firm defending the City, initially billed $1.8 million for two weeks of legal work.  By August 8, the firm was now asking  $3.2 million.

Tim Campbel, a longtime Westchester resident and veteran public servant who spent his career managing a municipal performance audit program, wrote in a note to CTN “As a reward for Gibson Dunn’s deflecting the City’s complicity in LAHSA’s mismanagement, the City just approved paying them $4 million more than the initial $1.8 million, which was twice their originally contracted amount. The Council originally balked at paying them almost $6 million. Apparently, that was all for show, since they agreed to pay the law firm a mere $200,000 less than $6 million.”

The L.A. Times reported that $4 million would come from the City’s unappropriated balance. Campbell explains that money could have been used to help close the deficit or fund other programs that benefit taxpayers.

“Instead, it was spent to defend the City’s inaction and mismanagement of homelessness programs,” Campbell said.  “If you had any doubt about what the city’s priorities are, this should remove any question–it is to defend the status quo and never take accountability for its failures.”