The Brief

When landlords in Southern California want to evict their tenants, they often hire Dennis Block. His law firm, Dennis P. Block and Associates, describes itself as the state’s “leading eviction law firm.”

Block once reportedly called himself, “A man who has evicted more tenants than any other human being on the planet Earth.”

But in one recent eviction case, Block didn’t just lose. His firm was also sanctioned for submitting a court filing a judge said was “rife with inaccurate and false statements.”

At first glance, the filing from April looks credible. It’s properly formatted. Block’s signature at the bottom lends a stamp of authority. Case citations are provided to bolster Block’s argument for why the tenant should be evicted.

But when L.A. Superior Court Judge Ian Fusselman took a closer look, he spotted a major problem. Two of the cases cited in the brief were not real. Others had nothing to do with eviction law, the judge said.

“This was an entire body of law that was fabricated,” Fusselman said during the sanction hearing. “It's difficult to understand how that happened.”

The court never got to the bottom of exactly how the filing was prepared. But six legal experts told LAist they could think of a likely explanation: misuse of a generative AI program.

These programs, the best known of which is ChatGPT, have come under increasing scrutiny in the legal profession. While some lawyers see potential for reducing costs to clients, experts agree that failing to check work produced by such tools is risky and unethical.

Law professors and malpractice attorneys who reviewed Block’s filing told us — based on the language used — that’s likely what happened in this case.

“I think it's virtually certain that the lawyer involved used some kind of [generative] artificial intelligence program to draft the brief,” said Russell Korobkin, a professor at UCLA School of Law who recently moderated a panel on AI in the legal profession.

Eviction is his ‘patriotic duty’

Eviction court cases center on a high-stakes question: Who gets to stay in their home, and who has to leave?

The outcomes for renters can be dire, in some cases leading to homelessness. It all unfolds in a court system that can move very quickly, with most tenants lacking access to an attorney.

In a 2007 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Block said evicting rent-controlled tenants was his “patriotic duty.”

Over the years, Block has distinguished his firm for its ability to handle large caseloads. His website says the firm has handled more than 200,000 evictions. In a 2018 court case, Block claimed his firm takes “upward of 500 unlawful detainer cases per month.”

At the same time, Block's firm has faced criticism from many tenant advocates, as well as some landlords. An LAist investigation of court records found Block or his firm have faced 12 lawsuits filed by clients alleging their cases were mishandled.

Some of the lawsuits were dismissed because they were filed too late. Clients generally have one year to file a malpractice complaint against their attorney.

Other lawsuits were resolved without going to trial. In one 2018 case that did go to trial, a judge found Block’s firm “acted negligently and fell below the standard of care,” but ruled the landlord failed to show the negligence caused any provable damage.

Legal experts told us they thought the filing from Block’s firm that led to sanctions bears striking similarities to a brief prepared by a New York attorney who admitted in May to using ChatGPT. It was the first widely reported example of an attorney misusing ChatGPT since the tool debuted last year.

Like the New York filing, Block’s brief falls apart upon checking the case citations. It cited 51 Scott Street, LLC v. Sheehan (2019) and Cole v. Stevenson (1998), both of which are fictitious, according to the judge.

Block’s firm cited Cole v. Stevenson (1998) and 51 Scott Street, LLC v. Sheehan (2019) in a recent court filing. Neither case is real.

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Case citations with ‘no basis in reality’

“This filing has the usual hallmarks of what's known as a hallucination,” said Jonathan Choi, a professor at USC Gould School of Law who reviewed the brief at LAist’s request.

Hallucinations are a known problem in which programs like ChatGPT “tend to produce things that look convincing, but actually have no basis in reality,” he said.

Chris Hoofnagle, a professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Law, said the problem stems from how platforms like ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs, for short) work.

Based on a user’s prompt, they mine vast troves of data to predict words that should come next in a sentence. They can produce stunningly detailed documents full of words seemingly written by a human. But often those words bear no relation to the truth.

“LLMs can generate fake information that basically is what you want to believe,” Hoofnagle said. “LLMs say these things in such an unqualified and confident way that they're convincing.”

However the filing was created, legal ethicists said submitting fake case law violates a core duty in the legal profession.

“Any time you cite a case and a holding to the court, it has to be accurate,” said Deborah Wolfe, a San Diego malpractice attorney. “That's your obligation. I don't care how busy you are.”

And some legal experts told us the fact that defendants often represent themselves in venues like eviction court just heightens concerns about accountability.

Ari Waldman, a UC Irvine School of Law professor, said tools like ChatGPT — if left unchecked — could lead to miscarriages of justice.

“Someone is going to be thrown out on the street because a lawyer couldn't bother doing research on their own,” Waldman said. “If that's where our legal system is heading, we're all in trouble.”

‘What do you have to say for yourself?’

Block did not agree to an interview with LAist. In an email responding to our requests for comment, he wrote, “It is apparent that you are simply intent on publishing a ‘hit piece’ against myself and my firm.”

Block said his firm “has been practicing for over 40 years and is the preeminent landlord/tenant law firm in Southern California. Needless to say, landlords rely on my firm to protect their interests as landlords and property owners.”

Block continued, “I will and cannot discuss matters that are confidential nor will I engage in a discussion where the sole objective is to simply smear my or my firm's name.”

Block’s firm submitted the filing that cited fake court cases in April 2023 as part of a seemingly routine eviction case. His firm’s client said their tenant should be evicted over non-payment of rent. The tenant said their rent had been raised illegally. The court was left to sort it all out.

According to a 2019 report commissioned by the L.A. Right To Counsel Coalition, 97% of L.A. County renters lacked an attorney in unsealed eviction proceedings, while 88% of landlords had legal representation.

In this case, the tenant was represented. Lydia Nicholson, an attorney with the Los Angeles Center for Community Law and Action, had asked the court to rule on the merits of the lawsuit without going to trial, basically arguing the landlord had no case. Block’s firm filed an opposition to that motion. All fairly standard procedure. Until Nicholson sat down to read Block’s filing.

“I felt a little bit like I was completely misreading or misunderstanding what was happening,” Nicholson said in an interview. “It was one of the weirdest opposition briefs I have ever received.”

Court records show Fusselman also found the filing unusual. He scheduled a hearing to determine what repercussions Block’s firm should face. Block did not attend that hearing. One of his colleagues, attorney John Greenwood, showed up instead.

Fusselman began by asking Greenwood, “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Greenwood replied, “I have to say there was a terrible failure in our office. There's no excuse for it.”

Greenwood said the attorney at Block’s firm responsible for drafting the filing relied on “online research.” He said “she didn't check it,” and that she had since left the firm.

In a separate court filing, Block identified the attorney responsible for preparing the filing as a first-year lawyer admitted to the bar in November 2022. LAist reached out to her for this story, but she did not agree to an interview.

“We unfairly put her under a lot of pressure to get things out the door,” Greenwood said. “We don't want to throw her under the bus.”

During the sanction hearing, Nicholson, the attorney representing the tenant, asked why Block hadn’t shown up in court to explain what went wrong. After all, Block was the one who signed the fabricated filing, Nicholson noted.

“I agree with you that by signing the pleading, Dennis Block, the buck stops with him,” said Fusselman, the judge. “But I'm satisfied that Mr. Greenwood was the person who was actually responsible for reviewing the document.”

Fusselman did not respond to a request for comment from LAist.

Concluding that Block’s filing appeared “to be frivolous,” Fusselman threw out the landlord’s lawsuit, allowing the tenant to remain in their home. The underlying eviction case is now sealed, a common practice in California when tenants prevail in court. Fusselman sanctioned Block’s firm for violating a section of California’s Business and Professions Code and ordered the firm to pay $999 to Nicholson’s firm.

Block wrote in a declaration to the court, “There was never an intent to mislead the court and I do apologize to the court and opposing counsel.”

The exterior of the Los Angeles Superior Court's Stanley Mosk courthouse, where many L.A. eviction cases are handled, is seen in 2004.

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‘More like a warning than an actual punishment’

By keeping the sanction just under $1,000, Fusselman allowed Block’s firm to avoid a requirement to report the violation to the state bar for further investigation and possible disciplinary action.

Erika Doherty, program director for the California State Bar's Office of Professional Competence, said it’s possible opposing counsel may have filed a complaint, but any ongoing investigation would remain confidential. 

Some L.A. tenant attorneys who often face Block’s firm in court think he got off easy.

“When a judge purposely keeps it under $1,000 … it feels more like a warning than an actual punishment,” said Alisa Randell, an attorney with the pro bono law firm Public Counsel.

Tenant defense lawyers interviewed for this story told us they’ve never seen another filing from Block’s firm quite like this one. But they said they frequently see landlord attorneys cutting corners and submitting cases they believe have questionable merits.

Joshua Johnson, a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, said few tenants have the skills or training needed to spot these problems.

“That's why we stress that tenants must have attorneys to fight these cases,” Johnson said.

The ‘fast and furious’ world of eviction court 

Landlords file thousands of evictions in L.A. County every month. Court observers say the high volume and constant churn of eviction cases encourages slapdash work.

“The process itself is very oriented to this almost fast and furious style of case processing,” said Kyle Nelson, a policy analyst and researcher with the tenant rights group Strategic Actions for a Just Economy. “Everybody is completely overwhelmed.”

Evictions plummeted early in the pandemic after state and local governments put new COVID-19 renter protections in place. But Nelson said L.A. County eviction filings are now back to pre-pandemic levels.

Proposals to provide tenants with free attorneys in eviction court are currently under consideration by L.A. city council members and L.A. County supervisors. Proponents argue a “right to counsel” would even the playing field for tenants in danger of losing their housing.

“You have a system that's supposed to be equitable, but it's not,” said Javier Beltran, deputy director of the L.A.-based Housing Rights Center.

Eviction court judges in L.A. often hear dozens of cases in a single day. They issue rulings in a matter of minutes, all while attorneys and onlookers shuffle in and out of the courtroom and chat in the wings. Tenants without attorneys regularly struggle to understand what’s going on. Most landlords rely on lawyers to secure them a favorable outcome in court.

Beltran believes Block’s firm uses that imbalance to their advantage.

“Which then allows [Block’s firm] to evict folks in large mass, which then exacerbates the homeless crisis,” Beltran said.

Given the large caseloads and emphasis on working quickly, attorneys are under a lot of pressure to find new ways of speeding up their work, said malpractice attorney Heather Rosing.

“Lawyers are really, really busy people,” Rosing said. “It becomes understandable that a lawyer would turn to a new and innovative research tool — or at least something the lawyer believes is a new and innovative research tool — in order to get to the answers more quickly.”

But even under those pressures, Rosing said, lawyers have a duty to tell the truth in court. And attorneys have a duty to supervise their staff.

A ‘strong advocate for people who own rental housing’

Block was admitted to practice law in California in 1976. His profile on the state bar’s website shows no record of disciplinary action.

In a past interview with LAist for a 2023 article, Block said that despite assumptions that all landlords are wealthy, many of his clients are “mom and pops” relying on a small number of units for their income.

In a recent interview with podcaster John Williams, Block described his childhood and successful career.

“I grew up in a one-bedroom apartment with my mother and my sister,” Block said. “I now employ 26 attorneys. And I have a support staff — a total staff of 45 people — that are making their contributions to the government, paying their taxes. But somehow if you're big, if you're successful, then all of a sudden you're not revered by society. You're hated by society.”

Dennis Block discusses Southern California tenant protections in a video posted by the Apartment Owners Association of California on July 14, 2022.

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Block regularly discusses L.A.’s ever-evolving rental housing regulations in online Q&As hosted by various landlord advocacy groups. In a July 2022 video streamed by the Apartment Owners Association of California, Block likened a city of L.A. eviction regulation to “state-imposed slavery” on landlords.

Arguing that the city’s eviction rules blocked landlords from removing tenants, even if they wanted to get out of the rental business, he said, “It’s forced labor at the very minimum.”

Block’s championing of landlord rights has won him a reputation as “a very aggressive attorney,” according to Daniel Yukelson, executive director of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles (AAGLA).

“He is a real strong advocate for people that own rental housing,” he said.

Yukelson said Block is known for helping protect landlords from tenant advocates, who Yukelson said can at times use underhanded tactics.

“Renters who don't comply with their lease agreements end up getting away with months of free rent, and oftentimes put owners in a position to pay out relocation fees,” Yukelson said. “In some cases, it's like extortion.”

Block advertises in AAGLA publications and appears in their webinars. Yukelson said over the years, he has heard from only a small number of landlords unhappy with Block’s services.

“If I was getting inundated with complaints about Dennis Block, then I wouldn't have him be associated with our association,” Yukelson said.

Common themes emerge in court records, online reviews

But some former Block clients have been less than satisfied.

An LAist review of L.A., Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside and Ventura county superior courts found that Block or his firm have faced 12 malpractice or negligence lawsuits since 2001.

In multiple cases, landlords alleged Block’s firm served their tenants notices to pay or quit — the first step toward an eviction — that failed to comply with legal requirements. Others alleged his firm made significant mistakes in routine court filings.

In 2011, one former landlord client alleged that after Block’s firm served his tenant a three-day notice to pay or quit, Block’s firm turned around and defended that same tenant against the eviction. According to court records, Block’s firm said they dropped the tenant after discovering the connection. The lawsuit was settled out of court.

Former Block clients have also aired their grievances outside of court. About 64% of the reviews on his firm’s Yelp page were one-star ratings as of early October 2023. About 28% were five-star reviews. We should note that not all Yelp reviews are genuine. Yelp has taken steps in recent years to better vet and remove illegitimate reviews.

LAist interviewed Ali Khan, who wrote one of those scathing reviews. He said he hired Block’s firm in early 2021 to pursue an eviction against a tenant in his South L.A. duplex. Khan said the tenant began subletting rooms without his knowledge, including to someone who moved in with a dog in violation of a no-pets policy.

“[Block] told me that I had a case,” Khan said, “that people don't pay him for his good looks — they pay him to win cases.”

Khan said he was living in Maryland at the time. He said he didn’t know that L.A. city council members had voted to shield renters from evictions over unauthorized occupants and pets during the COVID-19 pandemic. Khan said Block’s firm failed to tell him how those protections could stall his case.

“They should have known the rules had changed,” said Khan, who was unsuccessful in court and ultimately paid the tenant to leave. “They were just taking me along for a ride so they could just continue to rack up the bill.”

A missed opportunity to settle

Other former clients of Block’s firm echoed Khan’s complaint about poor communication.

Tracey Adlai said she came to Block’s firm in an emotionally raw moment. Her father had just died, and her family was seeking help with evicting a tenant who refused to leave his Hollywood Hills condo.

“I hadn't had time to grieve,” Adlai said, “and then was pushed into this role of being a landlord.”

Tracey Adlai outside of the condo once owned by her late father in the Hollywood Hills.

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The eviction case ended up dragging on for nearly two years.

In an ongoing lawsuit against Block for alleged professional negligence and breach of fiduciary duty, Adlai and her brother allege Block’s firm failed to properly communicate a potential settlement offer from the tenant early in litigation.

The letter from the tenant’s attorney suggested the tenant might consider leaving in exchange for a relocation payment of $21,200. Adlai said Block’s firm should have sent this letter to her brother, the administrator of her father’s estate and the plaintiff in the eviction case. Adlai herself was not a party to the eviction.

But, Adlai said, Block’s firm only sent that letter in an email attachment to her. She was in communication with the firm as part of her brother’s lawsuit. She told LAist she didn’t notice the email until months later. No one from Block’s firm ever followed up or called about it, she said — and no one sent it to her brother, the firm’s actual client.

“If this could have been wrapped up before going to a trial, it would have saved us hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Adlai said. The lawsuit claims more than $200,000 in damages, including legal fees, lost rent and other costs associated with maintaining the property while it was occupied by a non-paying tenant.

In a court filing responding to the negligence lawsuit, Block’s defense attorney Gary Starre wrote the complaint “is unintelligible and ambiguous.” He argued Adlai’s brother was Block’s client, not Adlai herself, and therefore she has no standing to sue. He also said it was filed one day after the one-year statute of limitations lapsed — which Adlai’s attorney disputes.

Adlai said despite more than $15,000 in legal fees paid to Block’s firm, she felt like none of the firm’s attorneys bothered to learn much about the eviction case — and none seemed to appreciate how important her father’s condo was to the family.

“We had to sell it to pay our legal fees,” said Adlai, who is currently renting a unit in the same building. “I always wanted this property. It was where my dad taught me about life.”

Adlai’s brother decided to drop Block’s firm and hire a different lawyer. The eviction case went to trial in September 2022. A jury decided the tenant had to leave her father’s condo. But after nearly two years of fighting, Adlai could no longer afford to move in.

A corner of Tracey Adlai's home, featuring a picture of her father and other family memorabilia.

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‘Failure to comply’

Other former clients told LAist that Block’s firm passed their cases from attorney to attorney, with lawyers at times coming to important court dates appearing unknowledgeable and unprepared.

“It was always a different person,” said Marie Frazier, an L.A. real estate agent who helped two of her former homebuyers with limited English skills pursue an eviction with Block’s firm.

“They just didn't seem professional,” said Frazier of Block’s firm. “Everything was very last minute.”

After seeking for more than six months to evict a non-paying tenant, the homeowners were hoping for resolution. Their trial was scheduled in May 2021. But on their day in court, Frazier said their attorney from Block’s firm, Marat Antonyan, wasn’t ready.

“Things seemed to go south pretty quickly when the attorney could not answer the judge’s questions about simple, basic stuff,” said Frazier, who was with the couple that day in the Stanley Mosk courthouse in downtown L.A.

L.A. County Superior Court Judge George Bird grilled Antonyan about why he failed to meet and confer with the tenant’s lawyer ahead of the trial.

“We have a different attorney checking the emails,” Antonyan said, according to an audio recording of the hearing. The defense “probably sent it to our office email, not to my email,” he said.

Antonyan did not respond to an email from LAist asking for comment. Former clients and tenant attorneys told LAist that Block’s firm tends to route messages through one central email address, which they believe worsens communication.

The judge pushed the trial back almost three months, saying, “It appears the case is not ready for trial because of the plaintiff’s failure to comply with the court rules … It is with a heavy heart that I continue these trials, given that the plaintiff has waited a very long time for their day in court.”

Frazier, the real estate agent trying to help her buyers, said the whole experience was “humiliating.” She said, “I just remember sinking into my chair.”

The homeowners eventually dropped the case. To this day, the tenant continues to occupy the property rent-free, Frazier said. And Block’s firm continues to bill the homeowners for past work.

“I don't think they did much work on it,” she said. “I don't understand why they just don't give up with the billing.”

Marketplace reporter Matt Levin contributed to this story.

Finding legal help

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority is losing control of responsibilities tied to about $239 million in federal taxpayer funds as the Trump administration continues a push to strip power from the joint city-county agency. Now, Los Angeles and L.A. County are competing for control of some of those federal roles.

A key vote scheduled for Monday could help chart the future of the region’s response to its homelessness crisis.

And it’s happening in a unique format. Anyone, including you, can join and likely cast a vote.

Here’s what to know about what’s happening and how to get involved.

How we got here 

A regional planning group called the L.A. Continuum of Care voted earlier this month to designate L.A. County to take over at least two federal roles currently managed by the L.A. Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA — running the homeless count and managing the region’s federal funding application.

The city and county have been competing for two other federal responsibilities currently held by LAHSA — managing a database that tracks unhoused people receiving public services and administering a system used to match people who need help with housing and shelter.

The local process to select LAHSA’s replacements began after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development suspended the embattled agency from these federal roles in June, citing financial mismanagement.

Independent reviewers scored the county’s applications higher than the city’s. On Oct. 6, the L.A. Continuum of Care’s 21-member board voted to recommend L.A. County for all four roles.

The following week, the L.A. City Council instructed its attorneys to explore potential legal challenges to the L.A. Continuum of Care’s selection process while negotiating with L.A. County for shared control of these responsibilities.

This week, city officials said those negotiations paid off. On Friday, the City Council voted 10-0 to support a tentative agreement with the county on the two remaining federal roles.

How to participate

The L.A. Continuum of Care’s general membership meeting is scheduled Monday at 3 p.m. The group will vote on whether to approve designating L.A. County for the two federal roles still up for grabs: managing the unhoused database and the housing matching system.

You can attend in person or online via Zoom, and anyone who attends might be eligible to vote.

The L.A. Continuum of Care is a regional planning group required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that chooses which agencies handle the region’s federal homelessness responsibilities. It’s a nebulous body without a fixed roster. It technically includes all “persons and entities interested in collaborative, solution oriented planning to address homelessness in L.A. County (with the exception of Glendale, Long Beach, and Pasadena)," according to its charter. Anyone who fits that description is allowed to vote.

Because L.A. County is the only candidate under consideration in the vote, county officials encouraged county employees not to vote to avoid potential conflicts of interest, according to an email from the county’s homelessness department.

Attend in-person at 637 Wilshire Boulevard, 1st Floor Commission Room, Los Angeles, CA 90017

Register to attend online here.

Worth noting: These are yes-or-no votes. If L.A. County is not approved, no decisions will be made.

How might this change things?

Since 2020, the homeless population has increased by nearly 10% in both the city of L.A. and across L.A. County, according to the official homeless counts.

The region’s homelessness budgets swelled over that same period, with hundreds of millions more spent on shelter beds, housing and services for unhoused Angelenos. Much of that money was available because of local voters who in recent years approved several sales taxes and other measures to fund homeless services.

The decisions getting voted on by L.A. Continuum of Care determine who runs the systems that track and direct that money and who answers to the public when results fall short.

After Monday’s vote, the L.A. Continuum of Care’s selections will go to a federal judge for review on Tuesday. The court will then largely determine when and how the transition away from LAHSA happens in the coming months.

It’s unclear how the shift in control will impact homeless services on the ground. LAHSA leaders and employees have warned that transferring these responsibilities is complex and could take up to a year.

A bitter fight over the best path forward played out ahead of the vote.

L.A. city officials, including Mayor Karen Bass, said they want collaborative governance, and argued giving the county sole authority over federal responsibilities would hurt city residents.

“The City of Los Angeles provides the overwhelming majority of housing for the region,” Bass and several city council members said in a statement earlier this month. “The City must be able to help the people on our own streets by placing them into the housing that we build and fund in order to solve the homelessness crisis,” the statement continued.

This month, Bass and a group of L.A. City Council members sent a letter to the L.A. Continuum of Care, arguing that the city’s applications should have scored higher, and urging more support for the city’s bid.

Leaders of the L.A. County Department of Homeless Services and Housing said the county applied for all four functions because it’s best positioned to represent and collaborate with the region's 85 cities and hundreds of service providers.

Ben Kay, chair of the L.A. Continuum of Care board, wrote to the mayor, City Council and county supervisors on Oct. 14 that the dispute had shifted from “a united front against federal encroachment to splintered infighting.” Kay warned that it could squander the chance to keep local control of these systems and head off further federal involvement. He defended the scoring and selection, saying the board “stands firmly behind the integrity of that process.”

The L.A. City Council held a special meeting on Oct. 14 to discuss the city’s next steps. City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo laid out some options: negotiating with L.A. County for co-leadership of federal roles, separating from L.A. County and forming a city-only continuum of care or potentially filing a lawsuit challenging the whole court-ordered selection process.

After a closed-session discussion, City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson announced the council was formally requesting that the L.A. City Attorney’s Office “develop options for litigation to protect the city and to protect our constituents, both housed and homeless.”

The council also asked the city administrative officer to keep negotiating with the county.

Those talks produced a tentative agreement, which the council voted to support on Friday.

It covers the two federal roles still up for a vote Monday. If the county is picked to run both, the agreement would give the city a bigger role in each.

For the database, city staff would keep their current access. The city would also get all data in the system on unhoused people within city limits, including those enrolled in county-funded programs, according to the agreement.

Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who chairs the council’s homelessness and health committee, said the city would get the raw data behind the system so it can build its own reports and dashboards. “That’s something we’ve never had,” she said.

For the matching system, the city funds the vast majority of permanent supportive housing in the city, but it doesn’t currently manage matching for any of those units, Szabo said. LAHSA does. Under the agreement, the county would contract with the city to do that matching in buildings funded by the city or its housing authority.

“We’re going from nothing to something, and something substantial,” Jurado said.

The deal isn’t final. Its terms still have to be turned into binding agreements approved by both the City Council and the county Board of Supervisors, according to a report from Szabo’s office.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development told the court in an Oct. 20 filing that L.A. County’s homelessness department is an acceptable applicant and that it “prefers” the county over the city.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter’s court order requires the L.A. Continuum of Care to make its selections by Tuesday. Then, these complex federal responsibilities, supported by scores of LAHSA staff, have to move away from LAHSA on a timeline that will be set by the federal court.

LAHSA workers represented by union SEIU Local 721 have urged both the city and county to protect their jobs during that transition. They argue competent and experienced employees shouldn’t be sidelined because of leadership’s failures.

“We have spent years building relationships, learning these systems, and helping people move from homelessness into housing,” said Heather Varden, a LAHSA employee who posted an open letter from the union. “That experience should not be thrown away because the name at the top of the contract changes.”

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA, is losing its federal responsibilities.

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How to understand the context 

City and county officials created the L.A. Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA, in 1993 as a joint powers authority between the two overlapping jurisdictions. Both the city and county appointed members to LAHSA’s governing commission and relied on the agency to manage public homelessness dollars for the region.

The federal roles were delegated to LAHSA by the L.A. Continuum of Care, an obscure but newly powerful planning group that HUD requires regions across the country to maintain if they want federal money.

Since late 2024, LAHSA has faced a string of critical audits and other scandals, putting its management of L.A.’s growing homelessness crisis under scrutiny.

L.A. County’s Board of Supervisors voted last year to divert more than $300 million in county homelessness funding from LAHSA and manage the funds itself. The county's new Department of Homeless Services and Housing took control of those funds in July.

On June 11, HUD suspended LAHSA from federal programs, citing alleged failures in financial management, internal controls, grant oversight and conflict-of-interest policies.

The move, according to the Trump administration, meant LAHSA wasn’t able to do the jobs the continuum of care had delegated to it, including applying for $239 million in federal funds on the region’s behalf.

The federal housing department said that with LAHSA suspended, it intended to have L.A. service providers apply directly to HUD for the funds — a move that would have ignored regional priorities.

LAHSA sued. In August, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter issued a preliminary injunction on LAHSA’s suspension through Oct. 27.

This allowed LAHSA to submit the region’s collaborative application for federal funds by an Oct. 14 deadline. (The agency has since provided notice that it has submitted the application on time.)

Carter also ordered the L.A. Continuum of Care to start taking applications to consider replacing LAHSA as soon as possible. The group hired consultants and ran an application process over about a month, beginning on Sept. 11. LAHSA leadership decided the agency would not compete in it.

L.A. County applied for all four federal roles and was the only applicant considered for two of them. The city applied for and competed against the county for the other two.

A panel of reviewers (whose identities were kept private) scored written applications and interview responses for each of the federal roles up for grabs. L.A. County’s pitch to operate a key database, known as HMIS, used to track service participants through the system earned a score of about 87 out of 100, compared to the city’s score of about 82. On Oct. 6, a committee focused on the database voted 8-0 in favor of the county’s application. Later that day, the board voted 10-4 to pick L.A. County for that role.

The county scored about 91 on its application to manage the system that matches unhoused people with available shelter and other resources — known as the Coordinated Entry System or CES — compared to the city’s score of about 73. The board voted 12-1 to select the county to run CES.

A 21-member board speaks for the L.A. Continuum of Care and guides decision-making. That board voted Oct. 6 to recommend L.A. County for all four federal roles currently held by LAHSA. Bass and several city council members had been urging people to attend the upcoming meeting and vote against the L.A. Continuum of Care board’s recommendations and in favor of the city.

Reba Stevens, a community advocate who serves on the 21-member L.A. Continuum of Care board, reviews materials in October 2026.

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Aaron Schrank/LAist

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How does the Continuum of Care operate?

Communities like L.A. must form and operate a “continuum of care” if they want federal homelessness money. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, introduced the model in 1994 to promote communitywide collaboration toward ending homelessness. Congress wrote it into law in the 2009 HEARTH Act.

The L.A. Continuum of Care is the largest in the U.S. — covering all of L.A. County, except Long Beach, Pasadena and Glendale, which each run their own.

It isn't a government agency with its own staff. It’s a group of service providers, city and county agencies, housing authorities, advocates and people who have experienced homelessness. Known as the L.A. CoC, it operates under a governing charter.

Federal rules require the L.A. Continuum of Care to apply for HUD funding each year, decide which local projects receive it and oversee how the money is spent and how programs perform. The group must delegate who operates a shared database, runs a system for matching people to housing, applies for federal funding and counts the region’s homeless population.

Because it has no staff of its own, the Continuum of Care delegated those jobs to “lead agencies.” Until now, the group had chosen the city and county’s shared homelessness agency, LAHSA, to perform all four of those federal functions:

• Federal funding (Collaborative Applicant): submits the region’s annual funding application to HUD.
• Homeless Count (Point-in-Time count administrator): conducts the annual unhoused population census that shapes funding and policy.
• Homeless Database (HMIS Lead): runs the database where homeless service providers track who they serve and what housing and services those people receive. In Los Angeles, about 400 agencies feed into a system holding about 175,000 active participant profiles.
• Housing matching (CES Lead): manages the system that assesses people and matches them to shelter and housing. That system runs on the HMIS database. 

Sarah Mahin, director of the L.A. County Department of Homeless Services and Housing, made the county's case to the L.A. Continuum of Care board at meeting in October 2026.

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Aaron Schrank/LAist

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Canceled meeting stirs controversy

On Oct. 9, the Continuum of Care’s general membership held a meeting to formally designate the county to fill the administrative roles. Because that general membership is broad, the vote was likely to be decided based on turnout.

The day prior, the L.A. mayor’s office sent text messages to “thousands of community members,” according to that office, urging them to attend the meeting and vote against the Continuum of Care Board’s recommendations and in favor of the city.

County agencies also sent out notices about the vote, including a warning to county employees not to participate because of conflict-of-interest concerns.

More than 1,000 people attempted to attend the meeting online, exceeding the Zoom call’s capacity, according to organizers. The meeting was immediately adjourned by organizers, who told attendees they had to stop the meeting to avoid violating California’s open meeting law.

Katie Hill, CEO at Union Station Homeless Services in Pasadena, called the L.A. mayor's office’s efforts to stack the meeting with voters “outrageous” in an interview with LAist.

“There’s a process that everyone has agreed on that is fair and represents our collective best interests,” Hill told LAist. “We were supposed to ratify it in the same way that Congress ratifies electoral votes. And then all of the sudden they said they didn't like the outcome, and now they want people to not ratify it.”

Some city officials defended the mayor’s push to involve the public. Councilmember Tim McOsker said the board’s recommendations are “not a rubber stamp.”

“The [Continuum of Care] has a responsibility to scrutinize the recommendations, evaluate the scores, and exercise its own judgment rather than blindly accepting them,” McOsker said in a statement. “Public meetings should be attended by the public,” McOsker’s statement continued.

Hill’s organization has several contracts with L.A. County and just one with the city of L.A., she said. Hill previously served on LAHSA’s governing body as an L.A. County appointee.

While Hill thinks the county is better suited to run the system, some homeless services providers are staying neutral.

“We did not mobilize participants for Friday’s meeting,” Jerry Jones, executive director of the Greater L.A. Coalition on Homelessness, a network of more than 60 service providers, told LAist. “The best path forward is for both groups of elected officials to work together.”

“Regardless [of] who the [Continuum of Care] lead is, there are 20,000 people being served — we need to keep that funding,” Ivet Samvelyan, vice president of Hope The Mission, told LAist.

After the capacity issues, the Continuum of Care upgraded its Zoom account and now has capacity for 10,000 people for Monday’s meeting, according to a report the group submitted to the court on Oct. 13.

The group must make its final selections by Oct. 27, the same day the preliminary injunction is set to expire.

Local election officials across California are confused and frustrated after receiving letters from President Donald Trump’s Justice Department demanding that county registrars sequester ballots that the federal government believes were sent to noncitizen voters ahead of the midterm elections.

The letters, which were sent on Friday, ask for sensitive information, including Social Security numbers, on roughly 20,000 voters. It is illegal for noncitizens to register to vote or cast a ballot. The administration has insisted that immigrants voting is a major problem nationwide, when in fact it is quite rare, as even its own investigations have shown.

“All of this is simply meant to raise huge doubts about the integrity of this election,” said John Tuteur, the registrar of voters for Napa County in California’s wine country.

Tuteur and other election officials who spoke to The Associated Press on Saturday said they have already started to count ballots that have trickled in from the state’s 23 million registered voters.

“We’re not changing anything we’re doing. We’re proceeding with the election,” he said.

The federal government set a 48-hour deadline to provide information, and it warned that legal action could be taken against any official who knowingly counted a noncitizen’s vote.

However, the California Attorney General’s Office said the letters contained errors. For example, Mendocino County officials received a list of people who were not residents there, according to the state’s court filing.

The letters are the latest escalation in a legal battle between Democratic-dominated California and Trump’s Department of Justice ahead of the midterms. The federal government sued on Oct. 15, roughly three weeks before elections, asking a judge to bar the state from counting mail-in ballots from people the federal government has identified as likely noncitizens. A panel of 9th Circuit appeals court judges will hear arguments on Sunday about whether California can be compelled to comply with the federal government’s demands.

Some clerks say they will proceed with counting ballots

Tuteur said that two uniformed Department of Homeland Security officers delivered a letter to his office late on Friday afternoon. The letter included the names of 42 people whom the federal government accused of being noncitizens illegally registered to vote. There are roughly 86,000 people registered to vote across the county of over 130,000 people, Tuteur said. Approximately 11,000 people had already cast a mail-in ballot as of Friday. In larger counties like Los Angeles, that number has already reached over 331,000 counted mail-in votes.

He said his employees and his relatives were worried about what could come next.

“My family’s upset, worried about what’s going to happen to me,” he said.

The letter sent to Clerk-Recorder Kim Grady’s office in rural Amador County listed four people allegedly illegally registered to vote in the county. Grady was waiting on more guidance from the state about what she should do, and she wasn’t sure if she would get any clarity before the deadline.

DOJ threatens to prosecute

Department of Justice spokeswoman Kiersten Pels emphasized in a statement on Saturday that the department is explicitly “not requesting a purge, cancellation of registrations, or any programmatic action.”

Instead, Pels wrote, federal officials are asking for collaboration to “ensure the most secure election in California history.”

The letters on Friday came on the heels of a statewide sweep by federal authorities on Monday, where 28 people from the list of 20,000 were charged with illegally registering to vote. Some were also charged with illegally voting and lying on naturalization paperwork. Those charges could lead to years in prison.

Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, said that the clerks who didn’t comply with the government’s demands could face prosecution as well.

“The letters speak for themselves. Any election official who knowingly processes the ballot of a noncitizen is opening themselves to legal jeopardy,” Essayli said in a statement.

Noncitizen voting is very rare. For example, earlier this month Attorney General Todd Blanche announced federal charges against 10 people in Minnesota alleged to have voted illegally over the last three elections, a period in which more than 8 million ballots were cast in the state.

But Essayli said on Monday that even a small number of illegal voters could “dilute” the vote and undermine confidence in elections.

Concerns about the accuracy of federal data

Some election officials who spoke to The Associated Press on Saturday have questioned the accuracy of the federal government’s list of 20,000 voters.

“I expect this accusation to fall apart like we saw recently in Nevada,” Kristin B. Connelly, the Contra Costa County Clerk-Recorder and registrar of voters, said, referring to remarks Trump made in July, when he claimed the neighboring state had 1,500 noncitizen voters on its rolls. After his administration was asked to identify them, the number of actual registered noncitizens turned out to be zero.

Officials in Los Angeles County, who are named as defendants in the federal lawsuit, have echoed Connelly’s concerns about the federal government’s data. A preliminary analysis of 200 names from the statewide list of 20,000 found that over 40% had canceled registrations, according to a court filing from county officials on Wednesday. More than 70% of that sample had no voting history whatsoever, and nearly 4 in 10 were born in the United States.

Master escape artist and world-famous entertainer Harry Houdini had been dead for decades by the time teenager Kevin Connolly sat down with his dad in their New Jersey home in the late 1960s to watch Houdini, the biopic with actor Tony Curtis in the title role.

“I'm so engrossed in the movie that I'm crying that he passed away. And my dad looks down at me and says, 'What's the matter, son?' I said, 'Houdini died,'" Connolly said.

His father then comforted him.

That experience with the movie and with his father sparked a five-decade-plus collector’s obsession in the teen that led him to amass thousands of items from Harry Houdini’s life and career.

The collection includes handcuffs owned by Houdini, a signed life-size portrait of Houdini in chains, a linen bag his wife, Bess Houdini, made him and a pocket watch she gifted him on his birthday in 1910, at the height of his career.

Signed Cabinet Card Photograph of Houdini in Chains.

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Connolly Collection courtesy Potter & Potter Auctions.

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“Engraved inside the cover is a very personal note from her to him that also contains a little hidden code in the inscription,” said Gabe Fajuri, president and principal auctioneer at Potter & Potter Auctions. The watch has the highest valuation of the items, with an estimate between $20,000 and $40,000.

The auction house has been displaying these 100 items at its Chicago offices and will transport them to the Magic Castle in Hollywood for display on Oct. 30 and the final auction the day after.

“ These are things that potentially have his DNA on them. These are things that Houdini himself owned, handled, used, treasured,” Fajuri said.

The auction marks two milestones: 100 years since Houdini's death and the winding down of 71-year-old Connolly's collecting efforts, which enriched his and his family’s life.

“It broadened our world, and it was nice to be recognized for your collecting abilities,” he said.

Connolly’s collection has turned him into a Houdini authority, attracting the attention of Houdini biographers, film documentarians, as well as museums and galleries.

Houdini was born in Hungary in 1874. He came to the U.S. as a young child and moved to New York with his father, a rabbi, at 13. He began performing as a magician four years later and shot to stardom on the vaudeville circuit with bold escape acts. There wasn’t a straitjacket, chains or ropes that he couldn’t escape.

Connolly admires how Houdini inspired a generation of immigrants with these stunning feats.

A photo of an escape stunt by Harry Houdini. It's the first Houdini item Kevin Connolly bought as a teen during his 50-plus years of collecting Houdini memorabilia.

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Courtesy Kevin Connolly

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One of those acts is captured in the very first Houdini item Connolly bought after watching that Houdini movie. It’s a photo of Houdini hanging upside down from a rope in front of a building, two stories up. His arms are bound to his body. Crowds look up from the street, staring at Houdini as he attempts to escape. “TORONTO OCT. 18/’16” is written along the bottom edge of the photo.

“That one is not in the auction,” he said. Oct. 18 is Connolly’s father’s birthday, which makes it special. Plus, “That would be probably the last one I'd let go, because that's the one that started it all.”

With Halloween approaching, a women’s walking group is helping Angelenos explore the city’s spooky and historic landmarks. Their next outing is Angelino Heights — home to century-old Victorian homes and an iconic piece of pop culture history.

Los Angelistas organizes weekly walks throughout Los Angeles. October draws some of its biggest crowds, according to the group. Earlier this month, the group visited the Spadena House in Beverly Hills for a witch-themed walk and explored Los Feliz for a murder-themed tour.

Members of Los Angelistas stand in front of the "Spadena House" in Beverly Hills in 2025.

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(Jillian Goodman/Los Angelistas)

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Exploring LA’s spooky side

On Nov. 1, the group heads to Angelino Heights, a tiny neighborhood next to Echo Park known for its Victorian homes.

“It has so much history, but also really beautiful, stunning Victorian architecture,” said Jillian Goodman, one of the group’s three co-founders. “It’s such a cool place that I don’t think many people know about.”

Some of the homes have been backdrops for films and TV shows, including Michael Jackson’s 1983 “Thriller” video — which will be a stop on the tour.

Los Angelistas visit the "Charmed" house while on a walk through Angelino Heights in 2024.

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(Jillian Goodman/Los Angelistas)

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Building friendship beyond the walks

Los Angelistas began in April 2023, when Goodman and a few women who met through another social club decided to continue spending time together through walks.

The group has since grown to more than 7,000 members, Goodman said. Its organizers live across L.A., allowing them to host events in neighborhoods like Brentwood, Mid-City and Glendale.

Goodman said the walks encourage women to discover parts of L.A. they might pass by without stopping.

“Everyone thinks of L.A. as a driving city. No one ever really stops and takes a breath,” Goodman said.

For Goodman, watching members build friendships that extend beyond the walks has been one of the most rewarding parts of the group’s growth.

“They go to each other’s weddings. They go to concerts. Seeing people connect, not just in the group, but then having that extend outside has been amazing to watch,” she said.

The group has also helped members support one another during devastating times. Amid last year’s Eaton and Palisades wildfires, some members helped others find places to stay, despite having only met on walks.

“I thought that was so beautiful and wonderful that without us they wouldn’t have known each other,” Goodman said.