Despite promise to judge, LA isn’t detailing how homeless dollars are spent

The judge was clear. He wanted a promise from top L.A. officials to give the public full transparency about how homelessness dollars are spent on specific city shelter programs, including Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe initiative.

At a March hearing in federal court, Judge David O. Carter asked Bass and other leaders to commit to posting full invoices within two weeks — on a city website — showing how service providers have been spending the millions the city pays them through the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA).

“Frankly, the public should be able to see what the administrative costs are versus the services or shelter or housing that's being delivered to the streets,” he said.

LAHSA’s top executive and Bass agreed.

“The city will ensure that within two weeks on an ongoing forward basis the city will provide supporting documentation for invoices and make them publicly available,” Bass said at the time.

But 11 weeks later, the city still hasn’t done that.

What the city did — and did not do — to show unhoused spending

City officials launched a website in early April that links to the types of services that providers are required to offer unhoused people, and includes a partial list of how much was paid to each Inside Safe provider.

But it doesn’t break down how the Inside Safe providers actually spent the funds they were provided, nor how many people were served in connection with each payment or the number of services provided.

It’s simply a tally of how much each provider was paid.

One example, found in an LAist review of the city website:

A payment of $2.3 million to the provider at the L.A. Grand Hotel, the largest Inside Safe site. There’s no further information about how many services were provided for those funds or how many people were helped by that payment.

‘Unacceptable’

Carter hasn’t been happy about it.

“I’m giving you a first warning. This is unacceptable,” he told the city’s attorney at a follow-up hearing on May 2. The judge told city officials that at their current pace of posting documents, “you’re in trouble.”

“The public has the right to see what they're paying for,” Carter said.

After giving his warning in early May, the judge scheduled a follow up hearing for this Thursday, demanding to know when more spending details will be posted.

Carter also called on LAHSA, and city and county officials, to explain how they’re verifying that services paid for are being delivered by the providers, according to his order scheduling the hearing.

It comes as the judge is overseeing an outside audit into how L.A.’s homelessness dollars are being spent.

The mayor’s response to spending transparency gaps

In a live interview last week with LAist’s Larry Mantle, the mayor said the city didn’t want to confuse the public by releasing raw invoices that she herself had a hard time understanding. She said the city is working on putting together more understandable information to release.

“We all know the overall system, in every aspect, has been broken for many, many years,” Bass said. “I chose to act to get people off the street as fast as possible and correct the broken system.

“So there is not an attempt to hide anything. But it is taking the city a while to develop the invoices… that they can publish, so that they're understandable. What the city could do, but doesn't want to do, is flood a whole bunch of data that's out there that no one would be able to make heads nor tails of,” she added.

“So it's not just an issue of publishing invoices and publishing data, it's an issue of publishing data that would make sense to the average person. And I say that having been presented with some of the invoices and some of the data, and it's all very, very confusing,” she added.

“So I think it was a commitment that was made — maybe we should have given ourselves more time.”

(Click here to listen to the mayor’s answer, which starts 12 minutes into the interview.)

In a statement Tuesday night, Bass’ spokesperson said the homeless services provider invoices that the city receives don’t provide “a full picture of the services provided and costs.” He added that city officials are working to make additional records available that haven’t been posted before.

“The invoicing structure in general needs an overhaul, as does most of the homelessness and housing system in L.A.,” said Zach Seidl, the mayor’s chief spokesperson.

“Information isn’t being hidden,” he added. “The way the system has been set up for years has led to this.”

The mayor’s office did not answer multiple requests from LAist over the last week asking what specific details, if any, the city receives about how service providers spend the millions they receive from the city.

Homelessness spending has increased under Bass, mainly through the creation of her Inside Safe program, which rents motel rooms and hires service providers for people required to leave specific encampments. The program received a $250 million budget allocation this fiscal year, and $185 million for the next fiscal year that starts July 1.

Inside Safe has moved over 2,700 people indoors, of whom 72% are still in shelter or housing, according to the latest city data.

Councilmember says it feels like information is being withheld

Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who sits on the council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, said she’s frustrated by the missing details about Inside Safe spending.

“I believe Judge Carter has every right to be frustrated,” Rodriguez told LAist in an interview.

“I think it mirrors the frustration that some of us on the council have expressed repeatedly, in not getting report-backs on how these dollars are being spent.”

She said she had to resort to using the council’s legislative powers to get information about where all of the Inside Safe operations have taken place, where people were taken and who the service providers were for each site.

Bass’ office didn’t immediately respond when asked if that information was available before an April 2024 report the city council ordered at Rodriguez’ request. Inside Safe started in December 2022.

“I think it's unfortunate that there feels like there's a withholding of information,” Rodriguez said.

“How can you operate a program and not be able to understand yourself what expenditures are being made? That tells me that there's a really big problem,” she said in response to Bass’ interview on AirTalk.

Since last week, LAist has been asking LAHSA spokespeople what details, if any, it gives the city about millions in taxpayer funds that it pays to providers to help the unhoused people.

They pointed to a summary of the billing process, which outlines the financial details that are supposed to be disclosed to the city. But LAHSA officials haven’t answered what in fact has been disclosed, including for the $2.3 million payment LAist identified.

“We look forward to continuing to work with our partners at the City on both short- and long-term invoicing solutions,” said LAHSA spokesperson Ahmad Chapman.

LAist requested an interview with LAHSA’s chief executive, Va Lecia Adams Kellum. She was not available, Chapman said.

LAist also reached out to the L.A. Grand provider, the Weingart Center, to ask what detail it provided LAHSA to receive the $2.3 million payment, but didn’t hear back.

Advocates and officials are preparing to ask voters in November to double the countywide homeless services tax, known as Measure H, and extend it.

Rodriguez said as additional money is allocated to address homelessness, it’s crucial for elected leaders to be transparent and maintain the public’s trust.

“What I think is incredibly problematic is that with additional dollars that have been allocated in the [upcoming budget], it again gives me great consternation to continue to avail very limited precious taxpayer dollars for efforts that we can't have accountability for,” she said.

The lack of transparent details around spending, she said, “fundamentally undermines [the public’s] trust of their elected officials and their government.”