Federal Reports

We audited the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s Continuum of Care (CoC) program. The audit was initiated because of the homelessness crisis in the City of Los Angeles, which has the highest number of unsheltered people in the United States. In addition, the Los Angeles city controller issued a report in 2019, criticizing the Authority for falling short of City of Los Angeles homeless outreach goals. (See Background and Objectives.) Our audit objectives were to determine whether the Authority met the goals and objectives of housing and helping the homeless become self-sufficient through its CoC program and administered the program in accordance with HUD requirements.The Authority did not fully meet the goals and objectives of the program and did not always follow program requirements. Specifically, it (1) did not use $3.5 million in CoC grant awards and left the funds to expire, (2) did not support Homeless Management Information System and planning grant costs, and (3) did not submit timely annual performance reports (APR). As a result, the unused CoC funds represent a missed opportunity to meet the program’s goals of assisting the homeless, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) does not have assurance $879,847 in salary and rent costs were for the CoC grants, and CoC funds may have unnecessarily sat idle and unavailable for future awards.We recommend that the Director of HUD’s Los Angeles Office of Community Planning and Development require the Authority to (1) develop and implement policies and procedures to ensure that grant agreements are executed in a timely manner and effective monitoring is performed to prevent similar occurrences of grant funds going unused, (2) support payroll and rent costs or repay its CoC grants $879,847 from non-Federal funds, and (3) develop policies and procedures to ensure APRs are submitted in a timely manner and personnel are routinely trained on the grant closeout process.

Our inspection identified $155,575 in CARES Act and pandemic-related purchase card transactions with insufficient documentation.