New Homeless Audit Unveils Pathways to Permanent Housing Solutions

LOS ANGELES — City Controller Kenneth Mejia’s office audited how well LAHSA and the city did at getting people from shelters into permanent housing.

Shelters (AKA interim housing) are a critical pathway to permanent housing.
The audit covered city-funded shelters over a five-year period, fiscal years 2019-2023.
The audit provides information and recommendations in addition to, and not in place of, the most important solution to homelessness: expanding the supply of permanent housing. People cannot be placed into permanent housing when the housing does not exist.

In a five-year period for city-funded shelters:
• One in four beds went unused
• Cost of unused beds: $218M over five years
• Only one in five people in shelters got permanent housing
• Over one half returned to homelessness/unknown.

One in four city-funded shelter beds went unused, at an estimated cost of $218 million over five years.
Given that there’s a massive bed shortage, the contrllers office said this is unjustifiable.
Any bed that goes unfilled means an unsheltered person living on the streets is waiting longer than they need to move into a safer space and begin their path to permanent housing.

Nearly one in three people who expressed interest in a shelter bed were unable to secure one during FY22 and FY23.
16,000 people were removed from the shelter bed waiting list after an average of six months.

Fewer than 20% – that’s less than one in five – of people who entered city-funded shelters were able to move up to permanent housing.

More than 50% of people exiting city-funded interim housing returned to homelessness or unknown outcomes. (Unknown outcomes often means people went back to homelessness.)

People who were successfully housed were most impacted by high quality service and resources that bring stability.
Examples:
Consistent case management
Communicative case management
Housing navigation
Access to mental health services
Job training

Recommendations:
Recommendations are in addition to – not in place of – building more permanent housing. The most critical solution for homelessness is more permanent housing.

Formalize reservation policy: City offices reserve beds, based on location, before encampment cleanups and 41.18 enforcement operations. This leads to shelter beds going unused. And it compromises efforts to equitably & efficiently house people.

Data quality: Establish data quality standards that ensure that service providers report on beds accurately.

Performance: Develop performance-based incentives & ways to promptly identify underperformance

Corrective action policy: Develop a formal policy for dealing with underperformance

Housing navigators: Increase # of housing navigators

Outcomes: Monitor outcomes for people who move into housing after Time Limited Subsidies expire & for people permanently housed through other pathways

Improve group shelters: Explore how beds in group shelters could be more private and comfortable.

The aim of this audit is that the Mayor, city council and LAHSA will use it – in addition to building permanent housing and eliminating discriminatory barriers against unhoused people trying to rent apartments – to ensure that more people can secure a stable, safe and permanent place to live.

Details: Read the audit: https://tinyurl.com/LA-Homelessness-Audit