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iAUDIT - There has been a lot going on in the homelessness sphere lately, so I thought a summary of some key themes might be helpful.
I. Pratt Raises Uncomfortable Questions
Regardless of what one thinks of Spencer Pratt, everyone can agree he is bringing a new dynamic to LA’s mayoral race. His AI-generated campaign ads on social media are unprecedented for a major candidate, and his simple (or simplistic) messaging easily resonates with voters inundated with mailers, calls, and canvassers. He is also giving voice to many Angelinos’ frustration with the City’s chronic failure to address the homelessness crisis, and indeed its failure to provide the basic services we should expect from any city. His proposed policies may lack depth and be short on details, but they sound good in the media sphere.
A good example of the way he is shaking up the campaign is an article in the May 19 edition of the LA Times. Setting aside Pratt’s approach and the near impossibility of his being able to implement the changes he's championing, he is raising important questions about homelessness programs, some of which are considered taboo in the usual political discourse.
One of those questions the article raises has nagged me since the Grants Pass decision. Why is LAMC 41.18, the so-called anti-camping ordinance, still on the books? As the article says:
"In fact, Los Angeles had a citywide anti-camping ordinance, but the City Council repealed it in 2021 after a federal appeals court ruled that the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment prohibits the arrest of a person for sleeping on public property if no suitable shelter is available.
The revised ordinance, known as 41.18, restricts sleeping near schools, day care centers or other sensitive locations designated by the City Council. In addition, across the entire city, the law bans blocking sidewalks in ways that would impede a wheelchair or within several feet of a driveway or building entrance".
If the Supreme Court overturned the Boise decision, and cities are allowed to enforce anti-camping ordinances, why do LA's leaders still hang onto 41.18? Even by the city's own admission, its enforcement is subject to the discretion of each Councilperson; it is cumbersome to implement, expensive, and often ineffective at resolving encampments permanently. It would be far easier and simpler to reauthorize the pre-2021 ordinance. One reason for keeping 41.18 comes to mind: the DSA-aligned office holders see it as a way of allowing Councilmembers to run their districts like test tubes for their social experiments, such as Councilmember Hernandez's $27 million debacle at MacArthur Park. They can do as they please while fighting more stringent anti-camping measures, (in this case would merely be restoring the pre-2021 ordinance). Of course, doing so would seriously impact the funding of the large nonprofits that have seen their revenues skyrocket under the current system.
The article also raises the issue of why California's laws seem more focused on allowing someone with a serious mental illness to die on the streets than be placed in mandatory care. Even the heavily hyped CARE Court system is, ultimately, voluntary.
Finally, the article inadvertently reveals homelessness' dirty little secret. Programs aren't built to reduce homelessness. They're structured to ensure they qualify for federal and state housing funds, which still hew to failed Housing First policies. To quote the article:
"Leano said the mayor also can’t unilaterally mandate people receiving city-funded housing assistance enter treatment. He said doing so was likely illegal even if the City Council agreed to it, because of “housing first” policies codified in state law".
To leaders, success isn't measured by how many people no longer live on the streets; it’s measured by how much funding they can get for programs they know don't work. It is the most egregious abrogation of public trust a leader can commit, and our leaders have been doing it for years.
II. LAHSA Files Its Federal Audit
Almost a month after the deadline, LAHSA has filed the final version of its federal Single Audit with HUD. I’ve already written about how the late filing of a routine audit is a symptom of LAHSA’s chronic mismanagement, but the final audit contained even more evidence. One page 49 of the audit report, the independent auditors noted a “serious deficiency”. To quote the report:
“…LAHSA, acting as a pass-through entity for Federal awards…identified suspected irregularities and disallowed costs at one of its subrecipients (the "Subrecipient"). Based on the information available to LAHSA, these irregularities constituted credible evidence that may involve violations of Federal criminal law... LAHSA took steps to address the matter, including terminating the subaward agreement with the Subrecipient during the audit period. LAHSA subsequently made the required written disclosure to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the HUD Office of Inspector General (OIG); however, the disclosure was not made until approximately 8 months after LAHSA first obtained credible evidence of the suspected violations, and approximately 6 months after the termination of the subaward agreement. LAHSA obtained credible evidence on August 23, 2024; the subaward was terminated on October 18, 2024; the disclosure was made on April 25, 2025. [bold font mine].
…Title 2 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Section 200.113, Mandatory Disclosures, requires that a recipient or subrecipient of a Federal award must promptly disclose whenever, in connection with the Federal award (including any activities or subawards thereunder), it has credible evidence of the commission of a violation of Federal criminal law involving fraud, conflict of interest, bribery, or gratuity violations found in Title 18 of the United States Code or a violation of the civil False Claims Act (31 U.S.C. §§ 3729–3733). The disclosure must be made in writing to the Federal agency, the agency’s OIG, and the pass-through entity, if applicable”.
In plain English, LAHSA’s management became aware of possible fraudulent activity by one of its contractors, which requires immediate notification to HUD. Instead, managers didn’t disclose the activity until eight months later, during the course of the Single Audit. If not for the Single Audit, LAHSA may never have reported possible fraud. Besides bringing into question LAHSA’s contract management, which we know is questionable at best, this situation casts doubt on management’s ability or willingness to expose dishonest activity by one of its contractors. If managers didn’t know about the reporting requirements, that brings their competency into question. LAHSA is a significant recipient of federal funds, so managers should be familiar with reporting requirements. If they knew about the disclosure rules and ignored them, they were either too lazy to report it or unconcerned about the possible fraud. Either way, we can add the audit results to the mountain of evidence of the need for change in LAHSA’s top management.
III. Studies Undermine Two Myths About Homelessness
I and many others have written about the questionable methods and shaky numbers generated by LAHSA’s PIT Count. A key bragging point of Mayor Bass’ reelection campaign is that her programs have reduced homelessness, especially unsheltered homelessness. Even though there is little empirical support for her claims, she repeats them so often most media outlets take them as fact.
A report from the RAND Corporation’s Housing Center seriously undermines the mayor’s claims. In the three areas its analysis examined, RAND found that homelessness stayed fairly flat in 2025 compared to 2024, but “rough sleeping” -- the type with no tent or vehicle--increased. As the report states, “…rough sleepers tend to have “greater clinical need” than those who have some type of shelter, are harder to locate and are, therefore, harder to place in interim or permanent housing.
“Continued reliance on tent-focused homelessness resolution approaches will likely yield diminishing returns, especially in Hollywood and Venice, where these living arrangements are now uncommon”.
Stated plainly, the mayor’s programs, especially Inside Safe, have picked the low hanging fruit of people willing to come inside. Now, the City is faced with a population that has more medical and mental health issues and is more resistive to relocation. And it has no plan to move people off the street besides more of the same. Inside Safe is already flailing, with 40 percent of its participants leaving or being evicted. And the City still has not addressed the problem with counting people in the shelter/housing system more than once.
In another blow to homelessness mythmaking, researchers writing in The City Journal expanded on RAND’s survey to gather more detail on how many unhoused people are from outside the area. Once you get past the political editorializing, you can see researchers found that 64 percent of the people surveyed were from outside the City, and 53 percent from outside the County. Forty percent were from out of state. While I have written before that the origin of our unhoused population isn’t as important as some people think it is, the article shows how desperately the advocacy lobby tries to control the narrative. Since advocates insist homelessness is primarily caused by housing costs, they must maintain the story that most unhoused people became homeless here in LA. If a significant number are from outside the area, they may have never had stable housing to begin with. Advocates also label family reunification as cruel and mean-spirited, but it has shown great success in LA County’s South Bay, in Santa Monica, and in San Francisco. Managed properly, family reunification can be far more cost-effective than other solutions.
Whether or not most unhoused people are from outside Los Angeles isn’t as relevant as advocates’ refusal to include reunification in a suite of possible solutions. The stubborn insistence that Housing First is the sole solution has led to thousands of people being left on the street, waiting for housing that may never be built, and many of them cannot live in independently. It is merely a symptom of a failed one-size-fits-all policy that leaders refuse to abandon.
These are just three examples of a system that continues to fail. It wastes taxpayer money on ineffective programs, funnels money to unaccountable providers, and prolongs the time people spend on the streets. Until leaders become willing to address the reality of homelessness, we can expect more of the same, including at least six deaths on the streets every night.
(Tim Campbell is a longtime Westchester resident and veteran public servant who spent his career managing a municipal performance audit program. Drawing on decades of experience in government accountability, he brings a results-driven approach to civic oversight. In his iAUDIT! column for CityWatchLA, Campbell emphasizes outcomes over bureaucratic process, offering readers clear-eyed analyses of how local programs perform—and where they fall short. His work advocates for greater transparency, efficiency, and effectiveness in Los Angeles government.)
