Trump admin attempt to defund LA Homeless Services Authority blocked

"LAHSA may be dysfunctional. But thousands of unhoused individuals rely on these services," U.S. District Judge David Carter said.LOS ANGELES (CN) — A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s move to defund the LA Homeless Services Authority, the beleaguered joint powers authority plagued by accusations of fraud and financial mismanagement.“LAHSA may be dysfunctional,” U.S. District Judge David Carter wrote in his ruling granting a preliminary injunction. “But thousands of unhoused individuals rely on these services. It may well be an appropriate policy decision to transition away from LAHSA … Any transition must nonetheless be gradual and measured, so that this transition does not leave calamity in its wake.”The ruling means that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development must fork over $241 million earmarked for homeless housing, outreach and services in Los Angeles. It must also accept future applications for money, at least for the time being.LA remains mired in a decadeslong homeless crisis, brought on by the ever rising cost of living and housing shortage. By 2023, there were some 75,000 men and women living in their cars, in shelters and on the sidewalks in LA County, with most of those living in the city of LA.In his ruling, Carter wrote the abrupt defunding of the authority would “result in deaths among the homeless and the displacement of over 11,000 unhoused individuals onto the streets and into the neighborhoods of Los Angeles. HUD needed to consider reasonable alternatives when it abruptly decided that the bill for LAHSA’s dysfunction had come due.”He also noted that Housing and Urban Development was itself partially responsible for LA’s homeless problem.“HUD has been complicit in this crisis and has been on notice of the very accusations it now brings against LAHSA concerning fraud and fiscal mismanagement,” Carter wrote. “For decades, LAHSA and HUD have been in a joint partnership in failure.”The federal agency had, for some 25 years, known all about LAHSA’s failings, but only now decided to do something, Carter said, “weeks before what was a critical funding deadline — disabling Los Angeles from competing for funding.A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office declined to comment on the ruling. A spokesman for LAHSA has not yet issued a statement.Officials have often blamed the crisis on the services agency run jointly by the county and the city. LA County recently announced plans to pull the $300 million it contributes annually toward the authority and form its own agency, while the city is discussing a similar move.Homelessness in LA dropped two years in a row but is now on the rise again. The approach to homelessness has been criticized for being far too expensive, particularly a pandemic-era program that housed people in motel rooms. The flood of federal money following the pandemic also led to a number of high-profilestories of fraud.In June, Housing and Urban Development announced it was suspending all funding to the authority, including money it was already promised, due to accusations of waste, fraud and abuse.“HUD will fund results, not corrupt failure or the homeless industrial complex,” secretary Scott Turner said in a statement. “Taxpayers will no longer bankroll an organization that puts its own self-interests ahead of the Americans it was created to serve.”The authority then sued, accusing the Trump administration of attempting to dismantle the agency “in favor of a homelessness policy favoring criminal enforcement, drug treatment, institutionalization and civil commitment of the mentally ill.”This is not the first — nor second — time Carter, a Bill Clinton appointee based in Orange County, has played a key role in homelessness policy in LA.In 2021, while overseeing a lawsuit brought by a nonprofit group, the LA Alliance for Human Rights, Carter ordered public officials to house everyone then living in LA’s Skid Row neighborhood within 180 days, writing, “The city and county of Los Angeles have shown themselves to be unable or unwilling to devise effective solutions to LA’s homelessness crisis.”The Ninth Circuit was unimpressed with Carter’s order, which it said relied on “independent research and extra-record evidence,” and overturned it. The Alliance lawsuit settled in 2022, with the city agreeing to build more than 12,000 shelter beds or housing units.In 2024, Carter ordered the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs to build 1,800 supportive housing units on its West LA campus within six years. That ruling was largely upheld on appeal.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads