Los Angeles is moving forward with a new Bureau of Homelessness Oversight in an attempt to track how billions of dollars are spent amid mounting pressure to fix its fragmented and costly homelessness response.

The bureau, included in the City Council’s newly approved budget, will be housed within the Housing Department and serve as a centralized body to monitor homelessness spending and program performance.

Its creation comes in the wake of a court-ordered audit that found major gaps in the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA)’s ability to track performance and contracts, as well as the county’s decision to pull funding from the joint city-county agency to launch its own homelessness department.

Councilmember Nithya Raman led the push to establish the bureau, arguing the city

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