An audit commissioned by a federal judge found that a Los Angeles agency suffered incomplete documentation and insufficient financial accountability.
Los Angeles City officials have lost track of billions in spending on homelessness services, according to an independent audit released on March 6.
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.”
The report also cites a paucity of uniform data standards and real-time oversight, which limited the ability of the auditor to fully assess the true impact of homeless programs and raised concerns of resource misallocation.
A&M found that key stakeholders failed to monitor homelessness programs, and that LAHSA was unable to identify relevant service provider contracts and expenses. It also found gaps in documentation.
“Contracts between the City, LAHSA, and service providers frequently contained broad terms without clear definitions, which created ambiguity about the scope and type of service delivered,” the report reads.
The county and city of Los Angeles outsources the management and allocation of funds to LAHSA, an agency that the city and county are responsible for overseeing.
