by AP, Lauren Lyster, Christina Pascucci and Rick Chamber at KTLA 5
A federal judge overseeing a sweeping lawsuit about homelessness in Los Angeles on Tuesday ordered the city and county to find shelter for all unhoused residents of Skid Row within 180 days and audit any spending related to the out-of-control crisis of people living on the streets.
In a fiery 110-page order, Judge David O. Carter slammed officials’ inability to restrain the unprecedented growth of homelessness that has seen encampments spread into nearly every neighborhood in the region.
“All of the rhetoric, promises, plans, and budgeting cannot obscure the shameful reality of this crisis — that year after year, there are more homeless Angelenos, and year after year, more homeless Angelenos die on the streets,” Carter wrote in granting a preliminary injunction sought by the plaintiffs last week.
The judge’s filing was made a day after Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti vowed to spend nearly $1 billion in the coming year to get people off the streets. Carter on Tuesday ordered “that $1 billion, as represented by Mayor Garcetti, will be placed in escrow,” with a spending plan “accounted for and reported to the Court within seven days.”
In addition, Carter mandated the city auditor examine all public money spent in recent years to combat homelessness, including funds from a 2016 bond measure approved by voters to create 10,000 housing units over a decade. But that project has been slow to ramp up.
As of January 2020, there were more than 66,400 homeless people in Los Angeles County, with 41,000 within LA city limits. While the homeless population was once largely confined to the notorious Skid Row neighborhood in downtown, rows of tents, cardboard shelters, battered RVs and makeshift plywood structures are now familiar sights throughout the nation’s second-most populous city.
Carter ordered the city and county to find shelter for all women and children on Skid Row within 90 days, and every homeless person in the downtown area must have a place to stay by mid-October.
Skip Miller, an attorney representing LA County, said the judge’s order “goes well beyond” what the plaintiffs asked for in their preliminary injunction.
“We’re now evaluating our options, including the possibility of an appeal,” Miller said, adding that the county has spent millions on “proven strategies that have produced measurable results throughout the region, not just on Skid Row.”
Garcetti said he had been briefed on the lengthy ruling, but hadn’t yet read it. He told reporters at City Hall that he and the judge share a sense of urgency, but the mayor warned the city could not tolerate delays in the proposed record investment in housing, services and treatment for the homeless…
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