The Brief

Preliminary results of last month’s Los Angeles County homelessness count show a year-to-year drop in the number of people living outdoors, according to data released months earlier than usual.

The data, from the L.A. Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA, is incomplete. It was distributed three months earlier in the process, as the agency faces an upcoming vote that could see the county take over direct oversight of hundreds of millions of dollars the county currently sends LAHSA every year.

Usually, no data is released from the annual Point-in-Time homelessness count until late June, after the full count is tabulated and a survey is conducted to estimate how many people were living in the tents and vehicles counted early in the year.

But this year, LAHSA Chief Executive Va Lecia Adams Kellum handled it differently. She released raw, incomplete data, as county supervisors prepare to vote April 1 on having the county seize control of funding after a pair of scathing audits about LAHSA.

Adams Kellum’s administration sent out a news release Thursday about the preliminary drop in the count and calling for continued county support of LAHSA. The release said the data indicates the unsheltered homeless count in L.A. County will drop by 5% to 10% when the final count is released later this year. That follows last year’s count showing a drop after years of increases.

“It’s important for decision-makers to focus on change while continuing the momentum LAHSA, the rehousing system, the city and county have produced over the last two years,” Adams Kellum said in the release.

“L.A. has been waiting years for this moment. Let’s trust what we have built and the real progress we are making,” she added.

The projected reduction in street homelessness “is a reason why we want to see [the] city and county continue to work together," she told ABC 7 about the preliminary results.

LAHSA is jointly funded by the city and county and overseen by a commission appointed by city and county elected officials.

Data is missing

Because the information is being released so early, some data is missing, according to footnotes LAHSA released to LAist in response to a public records request. Counts of unhoused youth are not included, and numbers could change for special counts along parks and highways, officials say.

“Note that all raw unsheltered counts (for each year) exclude estimates of occupants of dwellings as well as unsheltered youth who are added to the count as estimates from the result of the Youth Count,” one footnote says.

The preliminary data also does not include the annual multiplier data developed by USC researchers, which LAHSA has said “is crucial to developing the annual Homeless Count estimate.”

The preliminary data released by LAHSA show the 2025 count found 3,600 fewer people and dwellings — such as tents, makeshift shelters and vehicles — compared with the previous year. That’s about an 11% drop.

This year’s count also saw a drop in volunteers. About 10% fewer people signed up compared with participants last year, and many of those who registered this year did not show up after LAHSA moved the count back by a few weeks because of the January wildfires.

Adams Kellum’s administration has said the drop in volunteers shouldn’t affect the quality of the count.

LAist excluded from media briefings

In a deviation from past practice, Adams Kellum did not invite LAist to her briefings of reporters on the count results.

In the previous two counts since Adams Kellum took the helm at LAHSA, LAist was invited to the media briefing in advance of the official release, where the results were released and reporters could ask questions.

LAist was not invited to her Wednesday briefings of the Los Angeles Times and ABC-TV Channel 7 about the preliminary results, which were part of a presentation about her efforts at the agency.

The Times and ABC 7 published articles on it Thursday morning. LAist requested copies of the data. It took three hours of requests from LAist, including contacting Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ office, before LAHSA disclosed the preliminary data.

Adams Kellum did not respond to questions about why she departed from her past practice.

LAHSA spokesperson Paul Rubenstein responded that the count information was provided during wider-ranging conversations with other outlets, but has not answered who initiated those interviews and why LAist was not invited.

The file name of the document sent by LAHSA was "Media Briefing March 2025."

Questions about missing documents

About two weeks ago, LAist began asking LAHSA about hundreds of supporting documents that appear to be missing for last year’s count. That count recorded the first drop in unsheltered homelessness in many years in the city of LA.

Adams Kellum’s administration says it has not withheld any records from LAist but has not yet explained why scans of handwritten counts for more than 200 census tracts appear to be missing from what her agency disclosed in response to a records request.

LAist also has reported on an ethics breach at the agency, involving Adams Kellum signing a $2.1 million contract with her husband’s employer — despite previously telling LAist she had followed conflict-of-interest rules banning her from such involvement.

Her husband is the director of compliance at the vendor.

LAHSA ultimately paid about $1.7 million under that one-year contract — ending in December — without any reports on the vendor’s performance or contract compliance, according to a LAHSA public records response to LAist.

That appears to be common practice at LAHSA with the service providers it collectively pays about $700 million in county and city tax dollars each year, according to an audit and a written explanation from LAHSA to LAist.

Adams Kellum distances herself from audit’s findings

The most recent audit of LAHSA, overseen by a federal judge, found that LAHSA has made it impossible to accurately track homelessness spending, by failing to collect accurate data from its vendors and hold them accountable. That audit has further fueled calls for the county and city to pull funding from the regional agency and instead oversee it directly.

Speaking during her media briefing with ABC-TV Channel 7 on Wednesday, Adams Kellum emphasized the audits "cover a sliver of the first year of my time at LAHSA.”

But the audit overseen by Judge David O. Carter examined a period that included 15 months of Adams Kellum’s time leading LAHSA, according to the report released by the court. Adams Kellum became CEO in late March 2023, and the audit looked at a period running from mid-2020 to June 30, 2024.

She has not responded to an email asking for clarification.

Carter has scheduled a public hearing March 27 on the audit’s findings. He has asked some city and county elected officials to attend.

Topline:

The case: In September, the city settled a lawsuit brought forward by two brothers in their 70s who said they suffered serious injuries after an LAPD officer crashed into their car. Days before the $18 million settlement was reached, lawyers for the brothers said Feldstein Soto called an expert witness testifying for the plaintiffs and “attempted to ingratiate herself with him and asked him to make a contribution to her political campaign,” according to a sworn declaration to the court by the plaintiffs’ attorney, Robert Glassman.

The response: Feldstein Soto did not respond to an interview request. Her spokesperson said the settlement “had nothing to do” with the expert witness. Her campaign manager told LAist the city attorney had been making a routine fundraising call and did not know the person had a role in the case, nor that there were pending requests for her office to pay him fees.

What Jurado says: In a statement to LAist, Jurado said she wants to “make sure that the city’s legal leadership is guided by integrity and accountability, especially when their choices affect public trust, civic rights and the city’s limited resources."

What’s next: The motion needs to go through a few committees before reaching the full City Council. If it passes, the motion calls for the city attorney to “report to council in closed session within 45 days regarding the ethics breach violation and give updates to the City Council."

Every year in Santa Ana, Luis Cantabrana turns the front of his home into an elaborate altar in honor of La Virgen de Guadalupe that draws hundreds of visitors.

Along the front of the house, the multi-colored altar is filled with lights, flowers and a stained-glass tapestry behind a sculpture of the Lady of Guadalupe. Cantabrana’s roof also is lit up with the green, white and red lights that spell out “Virgen de Guadalupe” and a cross.

Visitors are welcomed with music and the smell of roses as they celebrate the saint, but this year’s gathering comes after a dark year for immigrant communities.

Luis Cantabrana stands in front of the stunning altar he built in front of his home in honor of La Virgen de Guadalupe. Every year, his display draws hundreds of visitors.

(

Destiny Torres

/

LAist

)

Why do they celebrate? 

In 1513, the Virgin Mary appeared before St. Juan Diego between Dec. 9 and Dec. 12, asking him to build a church in her honor. Her image — a brown-skinned woman wearing a green veil with her hands together in prayer and an angel at her feet — miraculously appeared on his cloak.

To celebrate in Santa Ana, worshippers gathered late-night Wednesday and in the very early hours Dec. 12 to pray the rosary, sing hymns and celebrate the saint.

Cantabrana has hosted worshippers at his home for 27 years — 17 in Santa Ana.

The altar started out small, he said, and over the years, he added a fabric background, more lights and flowers (lots and lots of flowers).

“It started with me making a promise to la Virgen de Guadalupe that while I had life and a home to build an altar, that I would do it,” Cantabrana said. “Everything you see in photos and videos is pretty, but when you come and see it live, it's more than pretty. It's beautiful.”

The Santa Ana home's elaborate altar in honor of La Virgen de Guadalupe draws hundreds of visitors each year.

(

Destiny Torres

/

LAist

)

Gathering in a time of turmoil 

Many also look to the Lady of Guadalupe for protection, especially at a time when federal enforcement has rattled immigrant communities.

“People don’t want to go to work, they don’t want to take their kids to school, but the love we have for our Virgen de Guadalupe,” Cantabrana said. “We see that la Virgen de Guadalupe has a lot of power, and so we know immigration [enforcement] won’t come here.”

Margarita Lopez of Garden Grove has been visiting the altar for three years with her husband. She’s been celebrating the Virgencita since she was a young girl. Honoring the saint is as important now as ever, she said.

“We ask, and she performs miracles,” Lopez said.

Claudia Tapia, a lifelong Santa Ana resident, said the Virgin Mary represents strength.

“Right now, with everything going on, a lot of our families [have] turned and prayed to the Virgen for strength during these times,” Tapia said. “She's a very strong symbol of Mexican culture, of unity, of faith and of resilience.”

See it for yourself

The shrine will stay up into the new year on the corner of Broadway and Camile Street.

California’s unemployment agency kept paying cellphone bills for 4 1/2 years without checking whether its workers actually were using the devices.

That’s how it racked up $4.6 million in fees for mobile devices its workers were not using, according to a new state audit detailing wasteful spending at several government agencies.

The Employment Development Department’s excessive cellphone bills date to the COVID-19 pandemic, when it shifted call center employees to remote work and faced pressure to release benefits to millions of suddenly unemployed Californians.

It acquired 7,224 cellphones and wireless hotspots by December 2020. State auditors analyzed 54 months of invoices since then and found half the devices were unused for at least two years, 25% were unused for three years and 99 of them were never used at all.

The investigation, which auditors opened after receiving a tip, identified 6,285 devices that were unused for at least four consecutive months, and said the department spent $4.6 million on monthly service fees for them.

From the beginning, the department had about 2,000 more cellphones than call center employees, according to the audit. The gap widened over time after the pandemic ended and the department’s staffing returned to its normal headcount.

As of April, the audit said the department had 1,787 unemployment call center employees, but was paying monthly service fees for 5,097 mobile devices.

“Although obtaining the mobile devices during COVID-19 may have been a good idea to serve the public, continuing to pay the monthly service fees for so many unused devices, especially post-COVID-19, was wasteful,” the audit said.

Department officials told auditors they were unaware of the spending, but auditors pointed to regular invoices from Verizon that showed which phones were not being used.

“We would have expected EDD management to have reconsidered the need to pay the monthly service fees for so many devices that had no voice, message, or data usage,” the audit said.

The unemployment department began acting on the auditors’ findings in April, when it canceled service plans for 2,825 devices. It has since implemented a policy to terminate service plans for devices that go unused for 90 days.

The California state auditor highlighted the mobile devices in its regular report on “improper activities by state agencies and employees.” The audit also showed that the California Air Resources Board overpaid an employee who was on extended leave as he prepared to retire by $171,000.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.