LA mayor, city officials called to court in contentious federal hearing on homelessness spending

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and other city officials are expected to take the stand this week at a federal hearing held to determine whether the city breached its legal obligations to create more shelter for unhoused people.

It comes as U.S. District Judge David O. Carter considers transferring control of homelessness spending from city officials to a court-appointed receiver after a searing audit wasn’t able to verify the numbers of beds the city claims to have created.

Several witnesses were called to testify Tuesday. They included a Skid Row resident, a former data official from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority who was featured in a recent LAist report about whistleblower claims against the agency and one of the auditors who worked on the court-ordered report.

The hearing, at the federal courthouse in downtown L.A., is expected to last several days.

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Who’s who

L.A. Councilmembers Monica Rodriguez and Traci Park were subpoenaed to testify Wednesday morning, while Bass was subpoenaed for Thursday morning.

Rodriguez has been critical of the city’s homelessness spending and set-up since another audit found serious accounting issues at the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA. She’s since called for the city to sidestep LAHSA entirely.

“I'm tired of the people's money being expended in a manner that has zero transparency, zero consequences for failure to perform and zero feedback on what the outcomes are,” Rodriguez previously told LAist.

Last week, Park called the city’s homelessness spending a “ a bottomless pit” that “ doubles down on failure year after year” during the council’s marathon meeting on the city budget.

“ And frankly, at this point, it's just embarrassing,” Park said. “ Hundreds of millions of dollars on bridge homes and home keys and interim housing sites, and no one can even tell us which ones are operational and which ones aren't, or how many beds we have.”

Ahead of the hearing

Bass and Rodriguez were served with subpoenas the same day the city requested the hearing be pushed back by a few days.

City authorities have objected to Bass and current council members taking the stand and cited a potential lack of preparation if they were compelled to testify by the court this week. They argued that other, lower-level city officials, including City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo, would be better suited.

The court later agreed that other witnesses, including Szabo, must testify first. Bass, Rodriguez and Park may still be called in afterward.

The city also asked for more time to prepare a new law firm hired a week earlier — Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP.

Carter denied the continuation request, in part because a “Roadmap” agreement from 2020 expires at the end of June.

The agreement requires the city to expand the number of shelter beds for unhoused people in L.A. by 6,000 new beds. Carter said in the last hearing he doesn’t want to be pressed for time or be “in a position of having a claim that the court's lost jurisdiction.”

What to watch for

The hearing is scheduled to run through Friday. The proceedings are expected to resume Wednesday morning.

Once testimony wraps up, there will be a few weeks of written arguments from both sides.

Carter is expected to make a decision by the end of June, before the Roadmap agreement expires.

The city could then appeal the decision with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP on its side. The firm recently successfully represented the city of Grants Pass, Oregon in a landmark Supreme Court case that gave cities more power to arrest, cite and fine people who sleep outside in public places.