The Brief

An audit released Tuesday by the L.A. City Controller's office estimates that the city has enough shelter beds and interim housing for about a third of unhoused people living in the city.

Roughly 46,260 unhoused people live in the city, according to the latest Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, but there’s only about 16,100 interim housing beds available.

The audit said the “woefully inadequate” number of housing resources, combined with data quality issues and inefficient referral processes, make it nearly “impossible” to get an accurate count of how many shelter beds and interim housing space is available in the city of Los Angeles at any given time.

Concerns

The city and L.A. County gave LAHSA the responsibility of creating a bed availability system to facilitate shelter referrals in 2016, but the audit said it still doesn't have a functioning system seven years later.

The current bed reservation system is so unreliable LAHSA instead uses phone calls and daily emails to keep track of bed availability.

Those methods became “wholly inadequate” during the last winter storms, the audit adds.

When LAHSA contracted with 211 LA to make referrals to shelters during the 2022-2023 winter season, 211 operators had to call multiple shelters to verify bed availability before they could make a referral.

“Having to constantly reach out to multiple winter shelters to confirm bed availability also added to the time it took for 211 LA to respond to calls and increased wait times for callers in general,” the audit said.

Bed attendance data can also be improved, the audit notes. That information is used to determine the number of sheltered unhoused people for the annual homeless counts.

The audit found multiple data entry errors and a significant number of shelters reporting low bed utilization rates, which increases the risk that the number of sheltered unhoused people is being undercounted.

Controller’s recommendations

The audit said LAHSA should create a functioning shelter bed availability system and improve the data quality for the existing process.

Specifically, it recommends LAHSA:

• Reevaluate its information requirements and redesign a shelter bed availability system that is publicly accessible to facilitate referrals to LAHSA -funded shelters.
• Develop and implement a plan to monitor, evaluate, and enforce its requirements on shelter program operators to enter bed availability and bed attendance data in a complete, accurate, and timely manner.
• Follow up with all shelter program operators participating in the Annual Homeless Count that report bed utilization rates below 65% or more than 105%, and require them to correct their count of people experiencing homelessness in their shelter, or provide an explanation for low or high bed utilization rates.

The controller’s office notes that changes are necessary because of LAHSA’s expanding responsibility in newer city programs such as Inside Safe.

“We want to get people inside as fast as possible, but in order to do that, we need to have a real time available shelter bed system that can provide that,” City Controller Kenneth Mejia told LAist. “Unfortunately, that was lacking.”

LAHSA's response

In a statement, LAHSA thanked Controller Mejia for his continued collaboration to increase accountability, transparency, and efficiency. 

LAHSA said it’s already working on the next generation of its bed availability system, which will be fully implemented by Dec. 31, 2024.

According to LAHSA, the new system will include:

• Detailed tracking of sites, buildings, units, and beds.
• Provide current occupancy rates.
• Provide unit/bed availability in real-time in a dashboard.
• Provides visibility to service providers on multiple programs in the same building.
• Track rooms being used as offices or other spaces. 
• Provide greater visibility and better insight into the shelter count and the Housing Inventory Count.

LAHSA said it’s also working on a new client portal that will help the unhoused community “get the help they need faster.” 

That portal will show a list of all shelters and access centers, allow unhoused people to direct message case managers, view upcoming appointments, and receive alerts that can help them find shelter during an emergency or severe weather, according to LAHSA.

“These technological enhancements to LAHSA’s data practices will happen on top of other practices LAHSA is changing to paint a more accurate picture of bed availability,” LAHSA said in a statement. “LAHSA is transitioning from reporting nightly bed usage to enrollments and exits for interim housing sites. People experiencing homelessness may hold but not use an interim housing bed for three consecutive days, so reporting enrollments and exits provides the best perspective on bed availability.”

LAHSA said it is making significant improvements to data collection and dissemination, and it looks forward to collaborating with the city as it moves forwards on these projects. 

Sergio Perez, the chief of accountability and oversight for the Controller’s office, told LAist the formal response they got from LAHSA after the audit was very positive.

“In part because they've lived with these failures on a day to day basis,” Perez said. “So we were telling them new things, I think we certainly revealed and brought into focus some issues they weren't aware of. But in terms of the reality of not having a functional bed inventory system, it's something they've been living with for years.”

New availability map

To give an example of what L.A. needs, the Controller’s office launched an interim housing bed availability map.

The map is incomplete, the office notes, but it includes information for current bed availability, referral processes, requirements for entry, and daily reporting practices for each location.

“We invite all necessary stakeholders (including LAHSA and the service providers that it works with) to join efforts and make an achievable dream a reality: the people of Los Angeles, including all of its unhoused neighbors, should know how many interim shelter beds are available on any given night,” the audit said.

Ashley Bennett, the Controller’s director of homelessness, told LAist they called more than 350 interim housing sites to gather the information themselves and also created a back-end system on the map.

“That would make it very easy for providers just to enter a bed availability number at the end of the day so we could have that kind of bird's eye view of what's available and what it takes to actually get someone inside,” she said. “So we know that it's possible.”

As Los Angeles homeowners grapple with the expense of rebuilding after last year’s devastating fires, an L.A. City Councilmember is putting forward an idea that could lower some costs.

Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Pacific Palisades, has introduced a motion to explore waiving part of the city’s portion of the local sales tax for fire victims who purchase rebuilding materials in the city.

The 1% of the local 9.75% sales tax that goes into the city’s general fund would be given back to consumers under the proposal. The waiver could apply to lumber, appliances and other rebuilding goods purchased within the city.

The motion, introduced Friday by Park and seconded by Councilmember John Lee, says: “The City should do everything within its power to alleviate the financial burden for these residents and businesses in order to facilitate their return and stabilize the Pacific Palisades community.”

Would it make much of a difference? 

Economists told LAist the proposal could help many homeowners mitigate the high cost of rebuilding, but likely wouldn’t tip the scales for under-insured, under-resourced property owners.

“It wouldn't hurt if it's very well designed and easy to use,” said Alexander Meeks, a director at the Santa Monica-based Milken Institute. “But I'm not sure if it's really going to tackle the scale of the financial challenge that survivors are facing.”

Meeks noted that the tax waiver wouldn’t lower up-front costs such as environmental testing, architectural design and permitting. And it may not help homeowners sourcing raw materials from outside the city.

Zhiyun Li, a UCLA Anderson School of Management economist, said the waiver could help some homeowners justify the additional cost of rebuilding more fire-safe structures.

“Homeowners must typically pay out of pocket to upgrade to IBHS+ standards, which are more stringent,” Li said. “The tax waiver could encourage upgrading to IBHS+ standards or investing more in mitigation, thereby reducing future risk and improving the likelihood of maintaining insurance coverage.”

What’s next for the proposal? 

The proposed tax relief would not be available to properties that have been sold since the fires started in January 2025.

The motion has been sent to the City Council’s budget and fire recovery committees. If approved by the full council, it would require the city administrative officer, the Office of Finance and the city attorney to report back to the council within 60 days on options for crafting a tax relief plan.

The motion calls for the report to consider factors such as how to minimize the burden of administering the tax relief, what documentation homeowners would have to submit and what it would cost the city to oversee the program.

Senate and House Republican leadership have resurrected a stalled plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security after a record 47-day funding lapse.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in a joint statement on Wednesday that the House will take up a measure passed by the Senate last week to fund most of DHS except Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through the end of September.

Republicans would then attempt to fund ICE and Border Patrol for three years using a party-line budget reconciliation bill that would not require support from Democrats.

"In following this two-track approach, the Republican Congress will fully reopen the Department, make sure all federal workers are paid, and specifically fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited," Thune and Johnson wrote.

The agreement comes nearly a week after House Republicans dismissed an identical plan, refusing to take up the Senate-passed measure and instead passing a 60-day short term funding bill for all of DHS that had little chance of overcoming Democratic opposition in the Senate.

Johnson called the agreement a "joke" and President Donald Trump declined to publicly endorse the deal. Trump had previously resisted any package that did not include his push to overhaul federal elections known as the Save America Act.

"I think any deal they make, I'm pretty much not happy with it," Trump told reporters last week.

Democrats welcomed the agreement as in line with their pledge not to give ICE any more money without reforms after immigration enforcement agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. But the deal does not include any of the policy demands Democrats are pressing for, such as a ban on masks for immigration enforcement officers and requiring warrants issued by a judge, not just the agency, to enter homes.

"For days, Republican divisions derailed a bipartisan agreement, making American families pay the price for their dysfunction," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote in a statement Wednesday. "Throughout this fight, Senate Democrats never wavered."

Trump seemed to bless the revived plan earlier Wednesday, writing on social media that he wants a party-line bill to fund immigration enforcement on his desk by June 1.

"We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won't be able to stop us," Trump wrote.

Despite the shutdown, ICE has been minimally impacted because Republican lawmakers approved $75 billion for ICE through another party-line budget reconciliation bill last year.

Congress is on a two-week recess, but the Senate and House could move to fund all of DHS except ICE and CBP as early as Thursday using a procedure known as unanimous consent that allows the chambers to circumvent formal voting as long as no member objects.

Even during a recess when most members are not in Washington, this could be unpredictable, especially in the House, where many hard-line conservatives oppose a deal that does not fully fund DHS.

"Let's make this simple: caving to Democrats and not paying CBP and ICE is agreeing to defund Law Enforcement and leaving our borders wide open again," Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, wrote on X. "If that's the vote, I'm a NO."

If a member does object, that could require waiting for another vote when all members are back from recess.

Claudia Grisales contributed reporting.
Copyright 2026 NPR

California clocked its second-worst snowpack on record Wednesday, a potentially troubling signal ahead for fire season.

It’s an alarming end to a winter that saw abnormally dry conditions briefly wiped from California’s drought map in January, for the first time in a quarter-century.

Though precipitation to date has been near average, much of it fell as rain rather than snow. Then March’s record-breaking heat melted most of the snow that remains. The state’s major reservoirs are nevertheless brimming above historic averages and are flirting with capacity, and a smattering of snow, rain and thunderstorms are dousing last month’s heat wave.

But experts now warn that California’s case of the missing snowpack could herald an early fire season in the mountains.

On Wednesday, state engineers conducting the symbolic April 1 snowpack measurement at Phillips Station south of Lake Tahoe found no measurable snow in patches of white dotting the grassy field.

“I want to welcome you call to probably one of the quickest snow surveys we’ve had — maybe one where people could actually use an umbrella,” joked Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources. “We’re getting a lot of questions about are we heading into a hydrologic drought? The answer is, I don’t know.”

State data reports that California’s snowpack is closing out the season at an alarming 18% of average statewide, and an even more abysmal 6% of average in the northern mountains that feed California’s major reservoirs.

Only the extreme drought year of 2015 beat this year’s snowpack for the worst on record, measuring in at just 5% of average on April 1st, when the snow historically is at its deepest.

“I think everyone's anticipating that it will be a long, busy fire season,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, director of the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Fire Network.

“Without a snowpack, and with an early spring, it just means that there’s much more time for something like that to happen.”

‘It’s pretty bizarre up here’ 

In the city of South Lake Tahoe, which survived the massive Caldor Fire in the fall of 2021 without losing any structures, fire chief Jim Drennan said his department is already ramping up prevention efforts.

“It's pretty bizarre up here right now. It really seems like June conditions more than March,” Drennan said. “People are already turning the sprinklers on for their lawns.”

Without more precipitation, an early spring may complicate prescribed burning efforts. But Drennan said fire agencies in the Tahoe basin can start mechanically clearing fuels from forest areas earlier than usual.

“That means we can get more work done,” he said.

It also means homeowners need to start hardening their homes now, said Martin Goldberg, battalion chief and fuels management officer for the Lake Valley Fire Protection District, which protects unincorporated communities in the Lake Tahoe Basin’s south shore.

Goldberg urges residents to scour their yards for burnable materials, create defensible space and reach out to local fire departments with questions. The risks are widespread — from firewood, wooden fences, gas cans, plants, pine needles — even lawn furniture stacked against a house.

“In years past, I wouldn't even think of raking and clearing until May,” Goldberg said. “But my yard's completely cleared of snowpack, and it has been for a couple weeks now.”

‘A haystack fire’

Battalion chief David Acuña, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, said fire season is shaped by more than just one year’s snowpack.

Climate change has been remaking California’s fire seasons into fire years. And California’s recent average to abundant water years have fueled what Acuña called “bumper crops of vegetation and brush.”

“Most of California is like a haystack. And if you’ve ever seen a haystack fire, they burn very intensely because there's layers of fuel,” Acuña said.

Like Quinn-Davidson, Acuña wasn’t ready to make specific predictions about fires to come.

But John Abatzoglou, a professor of climatology at UC Merced, said the temperatures and snowpack conditions this year offer a glimpse of California in the latter decades of this century, as fossil fuel use continues to drive global temperatures higher.

How this year’s fires will play out will depend on when, where and how wind, heat, fuel and ignitions combine. But it foreshadows the consequences of a warmer California for water and fire under climate change.

“This,” Abatzoglou said, “is yet another stress test for the future in the state.”

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