Los Angeles is set to return to federal court on Wednesday for a closely watched evidentiary hearing that will probe whether the city has been dragging its feet on key obligations in its homelessness settlement — and whether its actions violate court orders and warrant a contempt finding.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter called the hearing after a flurry of sharply worded filings from the court-appointed Special Master and newly installed data monitor, both of whom say the city has repeatedly delayed providing information needed to verify its homelessness data. In a Nov. 14 order, Carter wrote that the city has shown “a consistent pattern of delay,” one that “continues to this day” and could form the basis for contempt.
The case stems from a 2020 lawsuit filed by the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, a coalition of business owners and residents who accused the city and county of failing to adequately address homelessness.
The city reached a settlement in 2022 requiring it to create 12,915 shelter beds by June 2027; more than 3,800 still remain, according to court filings. But an independent assessment released earlier this year said those figures could not be verified because of inconsistent record-keeping and outdated data systems.
In a 62-page ruling over the summer, Carter found the city had failed to comply with several key provisions of the settlement and ordered the appointment of a court monitor to track the city’s progress on a quarterly basis and help the court in overseeing compliance.
That appointment — of Daniel Garrie, a lawyer and forensic data expert, as the court monitor — was temporarily paused last week after the city appealed and the Ninth Circuit granted a partial administrative stay. The appellate court, however, allowed Wednesday’s evidentiary hearing to go forward.
Carter said the hearing will probe several related concerns.
One major focus is whether the city has continued to delay or obstruct oversight. In a Nov. 7 filing, Special Master Michele Martinez told the court that many of her questions to the city remained unanswered and that missing documentation and unverified data had stalled the oversight process. In a separate filing, would-be monitor Daniel Garrie said his efforts were slowed because the city limited access to staff and underlying datasets.
The judge also plans to examine whether Los Angeles is meeting its quarterly reporting obligations under the 2022 settlement. Those reports are supposed to include not just counts of beds created, but also how many unhoused people were engaged, how many were offered placements, how many accepted or declined them — and why — along with the number of encampments in each City Council district. Martinez said the city’s October quarterly report again omitted those categories.
Experts say the dispute underscores ongoing questions about the city’s capacity to collect and verify reliable homelessness data.
“It’s clear that we need greater investment in data infrastructure to improve system efficiency and transparency,” said Ben Henwood, director of USC’s Center for Homelessness, Housing and Health Equity Research, in an email Tuesday. “But that alone isn’t enough—the workforce entering the data must also be supported and trained, because a system is only as accurate and useful as the information put into it.”
The city pushed back on claims that it has obstructed the monitor’s work, arguing in a Nov. 10 filing that Garrie has not actually requested any underlying data and that his team sent preliminary questions only minutes before the court issued its order to show cause.
The city said it has already provided “substantial details” about its data systems, made senior staff such as City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo available for interviews, and scheduled additional meetings. It argued that neither Martinez nor Garrie has identified any specific information or staff access the city has refused to provide.
In its most recent filing on Nov. 15, the city also argued any issues tied to Garrie’s appointment should be off the table while the Ninth Circuit’s stay remains in place.
In addition, lawyers representing the city told the court they were meeting Monday with the L.A. Alliance, LAHSA and Martinez to work through data-reporting disagreements, and said the evidentiary hearing is “premature.”
The L.A. Alliance disagrees. In a Nov. 17 filing, the group accused the city of “undue delay, obfuscation, and hampering enforcement” of court order, citing unanswered or insufficiently answered emails, incomplete responses to oversight requests, and missing reporting categories the City has been required to provide since 2022.
Plaintiffs urged Carter to impose daily sanctions, require the city to respond to data requests within 24 hours, and order Los Angeles to produce all missing information within seven days. They also asked the court to enforce the settlement’s meet-and-confer requirement, arguing the city has not made timely or good-faith efforts to resolve reporting disputes outside of court.