Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Continuum Of Care topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
CLA outlines hurdles to a city-only Continuum of Care; committee files report with equity instructions
Summary
The Chief Legislative Analyst told the Aging and Disability Committee that establishing a Los Angeles-only Continuum of Care would require complex HUD steps, potentially costly data transfers and stakeholder votes; the committee voted to file the report and instructed the CLA to analyze equity measures for any city alternatives.
The Aging and Disability Committee filed a Chief Legislative Analyst (CLA) report on the feasibility of creating a city-only Continuum of Care (CoC) and directed the CLA to return with analysis on how equity could be incorporated into any city-operated alternatives.
David Winstead, an analyst in the CLA office, told the committee the report — prepared after motions from councilmembers and consultation with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) — identified five technical steps required for a city CoC, including a stakeholder vote to constitute membership, creation of a governance charter, evidence of a coordinated entry process, and operation of a Homeless Management Information System (HMIS). "We did not identify immediate short-term benefits at this time," Winstead said, adding that the city would likely bear the cost and technical burden of steps such as the stakeholder vote and HMIS operation.
Winstead warned that the HMIS step could involve transferring "tens of thousands of participant files, maybe hundreds of thousands," a process he described as a "monumental undertaking" that carries operational risk and argues for keeping certain data and system responsibilities with LAHSA unless the city can demonstrate capacity to assume them.
The CLA presentation outlined HUD-sanctioned alternatives: negotiating a city 'SPA' within the county CoC structure to better track city allocations; revisiting earlier city pilots for local alternatives; creating a city-operated coordinated entry process focused on city priorities; and establishing regional service geographies inside the city. Winstead noted that some city-funded local resources would not necessarily have to flow through the county coordinated entry system, offering flexibility in design.
Councilmember Rodriguez said the homelessness response is fragmented across city and county bodies and criticized the absence of decisive accountability. She moved an amendment instructing the CLA, with assistance from the city health department, to incorporate equity into any analysis of CES alternatives or a city-operated coordinated entry process. Her motion asked the CLA to recommend performance indicators on racial equity and vulnerabilities (including disability, age and gender identity), equitable geographic access within the city and neighboring jurisdictions, and how LAHSA policy council findings should inform any city alternative.
The committee voted to file the CLA report as amended. Recorded votes were: Martinez — yes; Nazarian — yes; Hidalgo — yes; Rodriguez — aye; Padilla — absent. The motion recorded the mover as Councilmember Rodriguez; no second was specified in the transcript. The committee’s action was to file the report and return with the requested analysis and performance indicators.
The CLA did not provide exact estimates of how many current placements or projects could be absorbed by a city-run system and said further mapping and analysis would be required. The committee’s instruction frames the next step as a CLA report back with recommendations for equity measures and operational feasibility.
The committee took no immediate action to transfer HMIS responsibility from LAHSA; the discussion and vote were procedural instructions to study city alternatives and incorporate equity criteria into that follow-up work.
