LA city and county fend off a court battle over homeless services

Doug Smith, Los Angeles Times on Oct 29, 2026

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LOS ANGELES — Staving off a battle over control of homeless services, Los Angeles County has agreed in principle to let the city of Los Angeles control who gets placed in city shelters and housing.

The agreement, approved by the county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday after City Council approval Friday, settled a long-standing complaint from the city that it is cut out of information about homeless people within its borders and is forced to accept residents from outside the city into housing it has created.

The agreement also will give the city access to the homelessness database. Both systems has been run by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a city-county joint powers agency in the process of being dismantled.

It also cleared the way for the county to take over operation of the matching system and the homelessness database managed by LAHSA.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced the agreement Tuesday as "a historic opportunity for the city of Los Angeles to be completely in control of building a system that can end street homelessness."

"For the first time, the city of Los Angeles will finally be able to house people from our own streets, not from other cities," Bass said. "City taxpayers think they were paying to house people from the city of L.A. without realizing that they were paying to house people from cities all over the county."

The evisceration of the joint powers agency, created more than 30 years ago to settle a dispute between the city and county over federal homelessness dollars, began last year when the supervisors created a new Homeless Services and Housing Department and pulled its more than $300-million contribution from LAHSA's annual budget.

In June, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development suspended LAHSA, citing audits and media coverage of mismanagement and conflicts of interest.

The suspension meant the agency could no longer perform four federally mandated duties: managing the homeless database and matching system, conducting the annual homeless count and submitting applications for federal funding on behalf of the region's service providers. HUD told those service providers to submit their applications directly to the federal government.

LAHSA filed suit in federal court, and U.S. District Judge David O. Carter stayed the suspension for 60 days to give time for an orderly transition of LAHSA's duties to the city and county. In a hearing Tuesday, First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli agreed in principle to the new arrangement between the city and county.

Carter extended the stay to Nov. 13 for the parties to work out a few remaining details to conclude the lawsuit.

Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who negotiated the power-sharing agreement with Bass, put out a statement saying the decision transferring the federal functions to the county reflects that "regional leadership requires collaboration."

"Today's vote is a positive step toward a more coordinated and accountable regional response to homelessness," Barger said.

—Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.