LOS ANGELES – Over a five-year period from 2019-23, one in four city-funded shelter beds went unused, costing Los Angeles taxpayers an estimated $218 million, City Controller Kenneth Mejia announced Tuesday.
Mejia’s office released the findings of an audit Tuesday evaluating the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s performance in transitioning people from interim to permanent housing. In that span of five years, only one in five interim shelter residents were placed into permanent housing, while more than half returned to homelessness or unknown outcomes, data showed.
“This is unjustifiable especially given that there’s a massive bed shortage,” Mejia said in a statement. “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.”…