COUNCILMEMBER RAMAN ISSUES STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO AUDIT OF LOS ANGELES CITY HOMELESSNESS PROGRAMS

For Immediate Release: March 6, 2025

Los Angeles, CA – Today, Councilmember Nithya Raman issued the following statement in response to the release of the A&M Audit of Los Angeles City Homelessness Programs prepared at the direction of Judge Carter: 

“The findings of this audit reinforce the need for real oversight and performance management of our city’s homelessness response. This is exactly what I have proposed in my motion to create a division in LAHD to centralize performance management and oversight of the City’s spending on homelessness programs. 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.”

Last week, Councilmember Raman introduced a motion to establish performance oversight of the homelessness programs in the City, building on months of work to improve the availability and quality of data about outcomes. Despite the City investing over $1 billion annually into its regional homelessness response, there is currently no staff or department within the City government tasked with monitoring the outcomes of this investment, and very little data to hold the system accountable. Councilmember Raman’s legislation proposes creating a 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.  

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