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iAUDIT! - One of the more biting lines from Vice President Harris’ acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention was when she labeled Donald Trump “an unserious man”. She then listed the difference between what he said he would do and what he did as president—and what he would do in a second term. It was a stark reminder of the consequences of what happens when a political leader’s promises fall short of reality, and how that reality exposes a politician’s true priorities.
When it comes to homelessness, we should ask ourselves if local leaders ae truly serious about ending homelessness. How do their actions compare to their words? What do those actions say about their priorities? We hear a lot about “locking arms” and “unprecedented” collaboration, and how the latest PIT count proved the current system is working since it recorded a small reduction in homelessness. Lately, we’ve heard the word “accountability” used quite a bit. Nonprofit leaders tell us they are working hard to get unhoused people into shelter, connected to services, and permanently housed. But do the results tell us we should take what we’re being told seriously?
To answer that question, we must first consider the resources dedicated to eradicating homelessness. Depending on whom you choose to believe, there are anywhere between 75,300 and 139,000 homeless people in LA County. Combined, the City, County, and LAHSA spend at least $2 billion and as much as $4 billion on homelessness. (Its hard to get an exact figure because the City and County spread their costs throughout their budget structures). LAHSA has about 800 employees. The LA Times estimates 8,000 people work for nonprofits associated with homelessness interventions. There are no hard numbers for city and county employees assigned to homelessness programs, but let’s assume five percent of their respective organizations work on homelessness; that would be 2,500 for the City and 5,400 for the County, for a total of 16,700 public and nonprofit employees. That does not include the thousands of volunteers who assist these organizations. For example, the field work for LAHSA’s annual PIT count is done primarily by volunteers. Others donate their time and talents to a vast array of secular, faith-based, and other local organizations.
All of these human and financial resources focus on 75,300 to 139,000 people. That’s between .23 and .12 employees for every homeless person in L.A. County. Or, to flip the numbers the other way, that means there are roughly between four and ten unhoused people for every employee. For perspective, the number of employees for each person in the County as a whole is .01, (once you subtract all of LAHSA’s employees, plus the ones in the City and County government who are dedicated to homelessness, divided by the County’s population of 10 million). That’s 100 people for every City and County and employee. LAHSA, PATH, St. Joseph’s Center and the other large nonprofits don’t serve the general population; they concentrate their efforts and money of homelessness. With a relatively high ratio of employees and funding to clients, one would expect a robust level of service. And yet homelessness has inexorably increased even as budgets and employees have doubled or even tripled. At a recent hearing in federal court, auditors described broken showers and missed meals in shelters they visited. The lead auditor described the conditions as “heartbreaking”. The auditor also said service numbers could not be substantiated.
We can see just how unserious officials are when we look the relationship between the City of L.A. and LAHSA. The City pays a large part of LAHSA’s budget, and should receive a suite of services, such as outreach, shelter management, and service coordination for its money. In August 2023, LAHSA officials told the City Council the data on Inside Safe were unreliable, and the City was probably paying for vacant rooms. Councilmembers exploded; Monica Rodriguez called the system a “merry go round from hell” and Bob Blumenfeld exclaimed there needed to be more accountability for the millions the city paid LAHSA. That was more than a year ago.
At the October 2 hearing before Judge Carter, auditors from Alvarez and Marsal said LAHSA needs to hold its service providers accountable for services, and the City needs to hold LAHSA accountable. The Council, this time in the person of Council President Harris-Dawson, insisted there has to be greater accountability. In the year between August 2023 and the October 2 hearing, the State Auditor issued an April 20204 report showing state-funded programs had nothing to show for $24 billion spent on homelessness programs. In December 2023, The City Controller found LAHSA’s shelter tracking system performed so poorly, city case workers resorted to calling individual shelters looking for available beds. In February 2024, the Controller announced he was investigating Urban Alchemy, one of the city’s largest contractors, after a video showed an employee using a pressure washer to force an unhoused person off the sidewalk. Inexplicably, the City Council and City Attorney combined to block the Controller’s investigation, and the Council continues to grant Urban Alchemy millions in contracts. More recently, the Controller announced an investigation of an unnamed provider for billing the City for full meals at shelters while providing instant ramen noodles and other fast food.
At the hearing, after the audit firm discussed some of its findings, including the possibility of fraud, (mentioned by one of the court’s special masters), Supervisor Horvath (who is also LAHSA’s chair) made an astonishingly obtuse comment, as reported in LAist: “I don’t see LAHSA as an outside entity,” Horvath said, stressing that both the city and county have a shared responsibility for LAHSA’s actions. “That’s us”, (Horvath is the chair of LAHSA’s Board and the BOS). In a single sentence, she articulated the central problem of the City-County-LAHSA relationship; it is mutually supportive to the point each entity covers for the other’s failures. The way it should work is pretty straightforward: the City and County pay LAHSA to provide certain services. LAHSA may choose to contract with any number of providers, but the checks are written to LAHSA. Therefore, LAHSA is a prime contractor to the City and County and responsible for its subcontractors’ performance. Certainly, the payor-contractor relationship should be collaborative, but it is not a relationship of equals—one entity is paying for a set of services and has the duty to ensure those services are delivered, even if it means withholding payments until the contractor meets its obligations. By saying “LAHSA is us”, Horvath made it clear she doesn’t understand how the relationship should work.
The consequences of Supervisor Horvath’s attitude were made clear at the hearing. Service providers submit invoices with no supporting documentation, and LAHSA routinely pays them. The City, in turn, pays LAHSA without asking for justification. In fact, at the August 29 hearing, City Controller Mejia mentioned its common to pay LAHSA 25 to 30 percent in advance for some programs, which should have been a huge red flag. Since the City asks for no supporting documents, it would be easy for LAHSA to back into the billing by providing invoices matching the advance payment. LAHSA’s budget exceeds $800 million; its hard to conceive why it would routinely require advance payments for ongoing programs.
In the end, we need to ask how seriously we can take local leaders when they talk about reducing homelessness. Despite the infusion of billions of dollars, homelessness has steadily increased over the past 10 years, (take the supposed small reduction reported this year with a grain of salt, since it was well within the PIT count’s margin of error and relies on deeply flawed methods). Leaders pay lip service to increased accountability but have taken no substantive steps to implement it. The County Board of Supervisors has discussed reforms at LAHSA since at least 2018 and nothing has changed. Each year, it seems, officials promise “game changing” reforms and bold new programs, but at best we get tinkering around the edges with no fundamental restructuring. If officials were serious about reducing homelessness, they would have done it already. Instead, they are more interested in maintaining a broken system based flawed data, ideology, an organizational self-interest. As long as we support those who support the status quo, we must admit that we are as unserious as they are.
(Tim Campbell is a resident of Westchester who spent a career in the public service and managed a municipal performance audit program. He focuses on outcomes instead of process.)
