Federal judge questions LA leaders about wasteful homeless spending following audit

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- An audit ordered by Federal Judge David O. Carter of Los Angeles' homeless spending found a lack of data and financial systems used to keep track of homeless programs, causing waste. On Thursday, Judge Carter summoned Mayor Bass, L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, LAHSA and other officials to ask them why there continues to be no accountability.

"Nobody is asking our providers what they did or what services they performed. We may have providers who committed fraud and we may never know. We may have providers that provided excellent services and we'll never know," said Judge Carter. "If we're so short on money, why aren't these providers being sued...These parties owe you that money. Are they waiting for us to get senile or die? Go and get that money."

Judge Carter didn't call for a receivership to take control because he said the city is broke. The LA Alliance for Human Rights who brought the case disagreed.

"The city isn't going to be bankrupted by a receivership. There's a model for this which is the California prison system, was failing constitutionally as the city and county are doing here. A receivership was declared and took control of the California prison healthcare system. That did not bankrupt it. In fact, it made it run more efficiently and better," said Matthew Umhofer, an attorney for the Alliance for Human Rights.

The elected officials in attendance told the court they agreed with many of the findings in the audit but already knew the system was broken.

"I noticed some of the methodology they used in understanding how we do mental health services, provision of mental health services, mental health, I felt like there was a lack of understanding in how they came to some of the conclusions," said Supervisor Kathryn Barger.

"Examining the finances of any operation is always good to do to check to see how we can be more efficient. What it doesn't do is answer the question of how do we get people off the street and how do we keep people from getting on the street in the first place. So, that's really what we want to focus our time on," said Marqueece Harris Dawson, L.A. City Council President.

"You've inherited an incredibly difficult task," Judge Carter told Bass and Barger before turning his attention to others tasked with addressing homelessness, including the state. "Get Gavin down here. He has a blog and he's busy blogging. I'll request him here and embarrass him," said Judge Carter.

"The audit showed there were a lot of problems. We already know this and we are doing everything we can to address these problems. I think that this was a productive hearing, but we know we have much, much more to do," said Mayor Bass.