For a second time, the Los Angeles City Council Wednesday rescheduled a vote on a request by the city attorney to hire a “monitor” to track the city’s progress and use of funds under a federal lawsuit settlement requiring 12,915 shelter beds by June 2027.
The matter came before the council Friday but was rescheduled for Wednesday’s meeting, when at the recommendation of City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, the council delayed the matter until its Oct. 7 meeting.
A representative for the City Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Feldstein Soto has proposed contracting with former City Controller Ron Galperin and data analyst Daniel Garrie to serve jointly as the monitor in the L.A. Alliance case.
In June, a federal court judge determined that the city failed to meet its obligations under a settlement agreement with the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights. U.S. District Judge David Carter ordered city officials to provide an updated plan detailing how it will create 12,915 beds for homeless residents within two years.
In court documents, Carter wrote that the city has shown “a consistent lack of cooperation and responsiveness — an unwillingness to provide documentation unless compelled by court order or media scrutiny.”
The judge had previously threatened the city with appointing a receiver to oversee homeless funding and enforce compliance with the settlement, as requested by plaintiffs. Carter ultimately declined to do so, describing such action as a “last resort.”
However, Carter did institute a “monitor” to oversee compliance, who would “ask the hard questions on behalf of Angelenos,” the judge had written in his order.
In an email to City News Service, officials from City Controller Kenneth Mejia’s office said they found out during the Alliance court hearing on Sept. 16 that city officials proposed a few people, including Galperin, as the monitor. The officials from Mejia’s office also said they were not consulted on the issue.
“Contracting an outsider for work that can be done in-house is financially irresponsible, especially while city departments are understaffed and the city is facing multi-year structural budget deficits,” the statement read.
Mejia’s office explained that the controller is the city’s independently elected watchdog, mandated by the City Charter and voters to provide “exactly the kind of oversight work that the monitor will be doing.”
Officials said the City Controller’s Office has conducted several homelessness-related audits, built the city’s homelessness dashboard and made Alliance-related data transparent for the public.
Mejia’s team said they have auditing professionals with “decades of experience, along with staff who have technical and subject matter expertise who have been at the helm of the homelessness transparency efforts for the city.”
“… The city’s pattern of hiring expensive outside contractors instead of investing in the city’s understaffed workforce to do the work ourselves results in more distrust by Angelenos in city government, less money overall for city services and a disempowered and disinvested workforce,” according to the City Controller’s Office.
The case started in March 2020 when L.A. Alliance — a coalition of business owners and residents of the city and county — filed a complaint in Los Angeles federal court against the city and Los Angeles County accusing them of not doing enough to address homelessness.
A judge signed off on a settlement in September 2023 in which the county agreed to supply an additional 3,000 beds for mental health and substance abuse treatment by the end of next year and subsidies for 450 new board-and-care beds. The L.A. Alliance filed papers alleging the city was not meeting its obligations.
An independent court-ordered assessment filed in March was unable to verify the number of homeless shelter beds the city claimed to have created.