Los Angeles Daily News: L.A.’s chief auditor urges transparency over city’s use of Prop. HHH homeless funds

Photo Credit: Alex Datig

By PIERCE SINGGIH | psinggih@scng.com | Los Angeles Daily News

Citing the results of the 2019 homeless count, L.A. City Controller Ron Galperin on Wednesday urged leaders to more closely look at what’s happening to available public dollars targeted to combat the problem, which has been cascading across the city.

“Angelenos need to know where their money is going and deserve better results,” Galperin said in a statement reminding the public of his office’s first analysis of Proposition HHH spending in his recent Comprehensive Annual Financial Report.

Homelessness is up 16% over last year in the city and 12% countywide — and in the San Fernando Valley, the problem is also acute, jumping to 6,772 from 6,621 last year, according to results released last week for the January count. The annual count reported that nearly 59,000 people in L.A. County are now homeless, with 23% of those experiencing homelessness without shelter.

Galperin — the auditor and chief accounting officer for the city — noted L.A. has not been using all of its readily available funds to combat homelessness. Of the $86.4 million available funds provided by the voter-approved bond measure HHH, Galperin’s annual report said Los Angeles used only $4.5 million in the fiscal year 2018.

Furthermore, as of January, according to the City Controller’s office, $362 million in HHH funds were readily available and in total, $34 million has been spent.

With all of these spent funds, no new housing units have actually been built. Rather, the City Controller’s office says the funds have been used for pre-construction or construction.

“It has been two-and-a-half years since L.A. voters approved Measure HHH to spend $1.2 billion to create 10,000 supportive housing units,” Galperin said in a press release last week. “While nobody expected these units to be built overnight, at this moment not one HHH project has been completed. And the average total development cost per unit is nearly $520,000.”

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