Monday morning, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Council President Paul Krekorian will be in a downtown Los Angeles federal courtroom to formalize their offer to pay for an audit of the mayor's homeless program - Inside Safe.
David Carter, the judge handling a lawsuit accusing the city of not living up to its promises, says he wants an independent audit of the program, expressing concern that insufficient help is getting to people on the ground.
KNX News' Craig Fiegener spoke with Mayor Bass about Monday's court appearance.
"We will be in court at nine Monday morning. We have tried to, from the very beginning, be transparent. We've delivered almost 200 pages of documentation to the council and its public documents. So I think it's always good to evaluate and audit your work, and that's what we'll be doing," said Bass.
The plaintiffs in this case, the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, are asking judge Carter to fine Los Angeles more than $6 million for missing deadlines to create beds for the homeless and clear encampments.
Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who is interested to see what the audit reveals, says, "It's unclear to me what the outcomes have really been because often the numbers get conflated with LAHSA, and so I can't really ascertain clearly how much it costs, what are we getting. You're talking about a quarter of a billion dollars. That's a lot of money."
Judge Carter says though the city says it will pay for the audit, he will pick the auditor.
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