COUNCIL ADOPTS MOTION TO ESTABLISH CITY OVERSIGHT OF HOMELESSNESS RESPONSE

For Immediate Release: March 19, 2025

Los Angeles, CA – Today, the Los Angeles City Council voted to move forward a proposal from Councilmember Nithya Raman to establish City oversight of Los Angeles’s myriad homelessness investments. Despite the City investing over $1 billion annually into its regional homelessness response, there is currently no entity within the City government tasked with monitoring the outcomes of this investment. Councilmember Raman’s legislation will create a time-limited Bureau inside the Los Angeles Housing Department (LAHD) that will convene staff from across city departments working on homelessness under one umbrella. The Bureau will be explicitly tasked with performance management to ensure the City of Los Angeles is spending every dollar put toward homelessness as effectively as possible to bring people indoors into safety.  

The Council has been calling for greater oversight over homelessness spending in the City for years. Councilmember Raman’s legislation creates a time-limited Bureau within LAHD that brings together city staff already working on homelessness that will be charged with monitoring the City’s programs, using regularly updated data to identify and address challenges in program implementation, make real improvements in its performance, and help more people experiencing homelessness get the care and support they need. 

“This is about creating a sustainable structure to help us meet the goals we’ve set out: getting people off the streets and into housing,” said Councilmember Raman. “Our homelessness response is divided among a number of different entities, with each agency responsible for a different piece of the process. Each of the individuals responsible for these pieces cares deeply about getting housing built and moving people into that housing, but they are not authorized to convene all involved to solve problems and ensure every piece of the process is working. We need somebody to be able to do that, which is exactly what this new Bureau will do.”

The adoption of Councilmember Raman’s motion comes on the heels of the A&M Audit of Los Angeles City Homelessness Programs prepared at the direction of Judge Carter and released earlier this month. The findings of the audit reinforce the need for real oversight and performance management of the City’s homelessness response. “This work must happen now: this is about more than just metrics – this is about saving people’s lives by bringing them indoors into safety,” emphasized Councilmember Raman. 

Councilmember Raman’s legislation instructs the CLA, along with the CAO and the Housing Department, to report back to Council within 30 days on the resources and staffing plan necessary to stand up a Bureau situated in the Housing Department. 

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