Money Trails

The L.A. homeless audit keeps getting messier:

The audit was commissioned by federal District Judge David O. Carter and completed by Alvarez & Marsal Public Sector Services (A&M). The report noted that A&M found it challenging to completely quantify how Los Angeles officials spent approximately $2.3 billion in funding meant to shelter, feed, and serve homeless people because of the incomplete and inaccurate manner the city’s homelessness program recorded and collected data. The report painted a grim picture of the homeless program managed by Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), which was established in 1993. “Repetitive information gaps, coupled with a lack of accurate and complete data and documentation, posed significant obstacles to this assessment,” the report states. “Insufficient financial accountability led to an inability to trace substantial funds allocated to the City Programs. Fragmented data systems across LAHSA, the City, and the County and inconsistent reporting formats made it challenging to verify spending and the number of beds or units reported by the City and LAHSA, track participant outcomes, and align financial data with performance metrics.”

One thing seems certain is that the homeless themselves didn't get any of it...