Los Angeles is Number One in the Nation for Homelessness
When it comes to Top 10 lists, Los Angeles is the clear winner in terms of homelessness, but this is not an award you’d want to hang up in the city hall.
As it turns out, no city in the nation has done less for its homeless population than the City of Angels. In fact, its failed policies have resulted in the greatest number of people living unsheltered in the United States—more than 50,000. They’re also the number one recipient of federal funding for homelessness assistance than any other—more than $220 million in 2024. While L.A. spends billions a year in federal, state, and local monies to help those suffering on the street, homelessness, destitution, and misery grow.
This point was laid bare last week as a scathing new report showed a system in chaos. Alvarez and Marsal, a global consulting firm that is no stranger to auditing government spending and programs, issued a 160-page dossier of mismanagement and failure.
To Angelenos, the in-depth audit of the city’s programs told them nothing new. They’ve been shoveling billions a year into programs with few results. Complaints of sprawling homeless encampments rife with crime and filth flood City Council members’ inboxes. Partially naked people with untreated mental illnesses are a familiar sight on downtown streets. And, tragically, seven untreated and unhoused people die each day on the streets of L.A.
The Alvarez and Marsal report detailed a system with little financial oversight, no connection to performance, and no accountability. No one is in charge among the city, county, and the Los Angeles Homelessness Services Authority (LAHSA), and the coordination of housing and services suffers. The money simply doesn’t get to street-level programs.
The report exposed:
- No reliable coordination of services and outreach
- Double counting of services and multiple payments for the same service
- Payments for empty beds, payments without contracts, contracts with little or no detail
- No idea how much the city spends on homelessness out of its $13 billion annual budget
- Few people leaving shelters for housing
- Mental health services that do not meet real needs
The report confirms years of mismanagement, waste, poor oversight, no way to measure outcomes, and a web of sweetheart deals for nonprofits. The systems in L.A. are so bad that investigators were shocked at the inability to get basic information about finances and performance.
The problems identified in the L.A. audit are a warning for homelessness programs across the country. The tragedy of Los Angeles is repeated in hundreds of unaccountable consortiums across the country that simply do not deliver. This is compounded by the federal Continuum of Care (CoC) Program, which requires local communities to employ complex and meaningless data systems, broken coordination protocols, and tons of bureaucracy.
Among President Trump’s campaign promises is dealing with the national homelessness crisis that has hurt people and communities. He’s pledged to reform the current “Housing First” program that leaves the mentally ill and addicted suffering on the street—the opposite of its original intent.Audits and reviews of Continuums of Care should occur in every community to root out waste, end questionable contracts with bloated nonprofits, and demand accountability and measurable outcomes. Making sure that money is getting to the programs that get people treatment and reduce human suffering is long overdue.
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