Homeless encampments line the streets in Oakland, California, on Friday, March 15, 2024. The city remains plagued by homelessness as nearby businesses close their doors due to safety concerns. (DWS for Fox News Digital)
The audit comes after a lawsuit filed by the LA Alliance for Human Rights — a coalition of business owners and residents — argued that the city hasn't honored its 2020 settlement agreement that promised it would build thousands of shelters and sweep out homeless encampments.
The coalition urged Carter to sanction the city and pay up to $6.4 million for not meeting the settlement's terms.
"At a time when the City and County of Los Angeles are spending record levels of taxpayer dollars to address homelessness, somehow the impacts to individuals and neighborhoods are only getting worse," a spokesperson for the LA Alliance, Daniel Conway, told Fox News Digital. "We are long past due for a hard look at how these dollars are being spent, and the programs used to do the work."
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New federal data reveals that despite California spending over $17 billion to fight homelessness in the last few years, its homeless population has grown. (Fox News Digital)
Meanwhile, LAHSA's 2022-2023 budget totaled around $845.4 million, with $726.2 million going to service providers.
About $662 million was earmarked for housing, according to LAHSA's financial documents. Just over $40 million went to LAHSA administration.
Despite more taxpayer dollars at work, the homeless population continues to rise in the Golden State. It's up 6%, compared to last year, and has the highest number of homeless people living outdoors in the country. About 181,000 people were considered homeless in the state's 2023 count, and most are suffering from drug addiction or mental illnesses.
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A senior spokesperson for the California Interagency Council on Homelessness (CICH), which coordinates homeless programs across the state, told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that the audit's findings "highlight the significant progress made in recent years to address homelessness at the state level, including the completion of a statewide assessment of homelessness programs."
The spokesperson added local governments "are primarily responsible for implementing these programs and collecting data on outcomes that the state can use to evaluate program effectiveness."
Jamie Joseph is a writer who covers politics. She leads Fox News Digital coverage of the Senate.
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