An analysis of interim housing and shelter bed data found that data quality issues make it nearly impossible to find available shelter beds, according to Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia’s audit released Tuesday.

The City Controller’s Office analyzed and reviewed efforts by the Los Angeles Housing Services Authority (LAHSA) to gather, use, and improve interim housing data.

The audit highlighted where LAHSA’s data systems are lacking. The data quality issues make it nearly impossible for the city to have an “Accurate picture” of how many beds the city has available, and how many are being utilized at any given time, according to City Controller Kenneth Mejia.

The audit found that LAHSA did not follow up with interim housing providers on their point-in-time sheltered homeless count data, despite red flags indicating potential data quality issues.

A significant number of shelters have recently reported low bed utilization rates, increasing the risk that the number of sheltered homeless is being undercounted and that available beds may not be used efficiently.

The agency’s current system for tracking bed availability (Bed Reservation System) is so unreliable that LAHSA relies on daily census emails and telephone calls to track bed availability, rather than the reservation system.

In a press conference to present the audit findings, Sergio Perez, Chief of Accountability and Oversight in the controller’s office, said “When we assessed the existing systems, we found errors with a data entry including instances of beds that were either over-counted or undercounted, when in use, pointing to issues with data quality. LAHSA also did not follow necessary guidelines to investigate these data quality issues when they became apparent.” He added, “A significant number of the shelters we looked at have recently reported low utilization rates, increasing the risk that the number of sheltered homeless individuals is being undercounted is that available beds may be going empty.”

He further stated that the current audit raises serious concerns about the city’s efforts to confront the homelessness crisis and calls into question the validity of criminalization efforts within Los Angeles.

“If we can’t track interim shelter beds in a timely manner if no one can tell which beds are empty, which are filled, which are available for a person and which are not, then we run the risk on a day-to-day basis of violating the Constitution, which prohibits governments like the City of Los Angeles from punishing those who live on our streets when they have no other option,” said Perez.

LAHSA launched Find-a-Shelter in 2018, a publicly accessible web application that provides location, contact, and bed availability information for some shelters. However, low participation rates and inaccurate estimates limited its usefulness as a bed availability system.

Also according to the audit:

• Only seven shelters have ever participated, and only ten updates on daily bed availability have been provided since its launch
• Without bed availability updates from shelter program operators, Find-a-Shelter instead relied on bed attendance data, which we found to be prone to data entry errors
• Even when bed attendance data was accurate, it likely led to incorrect bed availability estimates because LAHSA’s program rules allow participants to be absent from a shelter for up to three consecutive days before losing their assigned bed.
  • The current Bed Reservation System allows shelters to reserve beds and record bed utilization for participants and is intended to provide LAHSA with bed availability to inform their referral decisions.
  • However, information in the Bed Reservation System is so unreliable that LAHSA instead uses an inefficient system of daily census reports emailed by shelter program operators.

The Controller’s office identified the following issues with this approach:

• The Bed Reservation System requires a significant amount of data entry to reflect changes in participant shelter enrollment status and bed availability
• The data entry changes made by shelter program operators were both too inaccurate and untimely to meet the needs of LAHSA’s referral process
• LAHSA does not monitor or enforce their data entry requirements to make the Bed Reservation System functional as a bed availability system

The audit also identified several transcription errors from when LAHSA’s matching teams copied the number of available beds from the emails they received into the daily tracking spreadsheets that they use to document their referrals, making it more difficult and cumbersome for LAHSA to externally communicate the number of available shelter beds to council offices, the mayor’s office, and others who need the information to coordinate the L.A. homeless response.

During the audit, officials selected six city-funded shelters, covering a variety of sizes and types, that participate in LAHSA’s centralized matching process for referrals, and requested daily census emails for each of the six selected shelters for five days between January and May 2023, resulting in a total of 30 different daily census email reports.

The review found many discrepancies between total daily enrollment in the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) and total beds occupied reported by shelter staff in their daily census emails.

When comparing total daily enrollment in HMIS to reported bed occupancy numbers among the six shelters selected for review, officials found discrepancies in 22 of 30 instances reviewed, and in eight instances there were no differences between the total enrollment in HMIS and the bed occupancy number emailed by shelter staff.

Officials also found that a significant proportion of enrollments and exits were entered into HMIS in an untimely manner.

During the 2022-2023 winter season, 211 L.A. explained that they received over 160,000 shelter-related telephone calls from single individuals for the Winter Shelter Program, but were only able to answer just over 83,000 calls, according to the audit.

Additionally, 211 L.A. found that they had “Consistently received inaccurate information regarding the number of available beds in shelters,” and that “The total number of fixed beds for the program consistently and vastly overstated what was available each day to callers.

Since 2015, homelessness in Los Angeles has increased by 80 percent, and according to the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, there are an estimated 46,260 people in L.A. experiencing either sheltered or unsheltered homelessness. There are currently 16,100 available beds in Los Angeles, according to the audit.

According to the annual Point-in-Time Count, which counts how many people are homeless on a single night, unsheltered homelessness in Los Angeles increased by 85 percent between 2015 and 2023, from 17,687 to 32,680. An estimated 71 percent of individuals experiencing homelessness on the night of the 2023 Point-in-Time Count were unsheltered.

Graphic image from the Audit Report