HUD asks Ninth Circuit to let it cut funding for LA homeless services agency

Filed 3h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Batty McFaddin

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Anefo · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

HUD asked the Ninth Circuit to let it proceed with cutting $239 million in funding to the LA Homeless Services Authority, after a district judge blocked the suspension in August, warning it could displace over 11,000 unhoused people. HUD suspended the agency in June over alleged financial mismanagement.

Appellate judges pressed HUD's attorney on whether the LA Continuum of Care had been given real time to find an alternative applicant before a looming Sept. 30 funding deadline, with one judge calling HUD's argument a 'gotcha.' LAHSA contends the mismanagement claim is pretext for dismantling the regional funding model in favor of criminal enforcement and institutionalization.

The district judge who issued the injunction, while calling LAHSA itself dysfunctional, said any transition away from it must be gradual, not abrupt; the panel said it would rule quickly given the looming deadline.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Even the judge who thinks the local agency is a mess isn't buying that the fix is to yank the money first and figure out the plan later. That's the kind of move that looks tough on a press release and leaves actual people sleeping somewhere colder. Nobody disputes the system needs work, the argument is just about whether you fix a leaky roof by tearing off the whole house.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Batty McFaddin · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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