As L.A. residents continue to rank homelessness as a top concern, taxpayers are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on Mayor Karen Bass’ signature program Inside Safe to help get people off the streets and into motels.
Now an LAist review has found major errors in a recent data release that tracks where encampments have been cleared and how many people were brought inside from each council district.
It comes as some council members have questioned a lack of details about how the mayor’s office chooses which encampments to offer motel rooms to.
The data was the first — and so far only — detailed public listing of each encampment operation for Inside Safe, a program that started a year and a half ago.
About the data and errors
The data was provided to the City Council back in April by the L.A. Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), after the council ordered officials to gather it.
As LAist was analyzing the data last week, we reached out to all 15 council offices to verify the accuracy. That’s when problems with the data were pointed out to LAist by officials — problems that hadn’t previously been acknowledged publicly.
Click to compare the spreadsheets
Officials who prepared the spreadsheet acknowledge it had the following errors:
- It incorrectly labeled encampments located in multiple districts as only being in a single district. In one of those operations, 116 people were incorrectly labeled as all coming inside from Council District 1. The vast majority — about 100 — were actually in Council District 13, according to that district’s spokesperson.
- It double-counted about 50 people who left Inside Safe motels,…
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