Los Angeles city officials are squabbling over a new report from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority that casts doubt on the effectiveness of the city’s camping ban.
Section 41.18 of L.A.’s municipal code prohibits camping in certain areas, including near libraries and schools. The city council asked LAHSA to conduct a review of the policy last year.
On Friday, LAist reported that LAHSA had completed that review and that the conclusions were “damning.” Officials found that encampments removed under 41.18 were quickly reconstituted and that few of those who wanted shelter were able to get it. Furthermore, LAist reported that LAHSA’s findings had been “hidden” from council members and the public.
Opponents of 41.18, including Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez, cited the report as evidence that the policy has been a failure. The allegation that the report was “hidden” also angered some city leaders and homeless advocates.
City Council President and 41.18 supporter Paul Krekorian responded over the weekend. He denied that the report had been concealed and cast doubt on its conclusions.
“The recent LAist story on LAHSA’s ‘report’ about Municipal Code section 41.18 is inaccurate in many respects, and highly misleading in total,” he wrote.
“The story claims that unnamed City officials have ‘hidden’ or ‘kept from the public’ LAHSA information, and this is flatly false. LAHSA is not a City agency and is not under the City’s control. LAHSA has always been free to publish any data it wishes. In fact, LAHSA’s refusal to make usable and reliable data available to the City and to the public has been a significant ongoing challenge for as long as I have served on the Council. In this case, LAHSA failed to provide the ‘report’ mentioned in the article to City analysts for over six months after the City Council requested it.”
According to Krekorian, when LAHSA finally presented its findings, the city’s Chief Legislative Analyst found the information to be “clearly faulty and incomplete at best, and perhaps even deliberately misleading.”
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