2026-10-02 · housing
Copper theft, flooding and empty beds plague L.A. homeless housing, report finds
Nardello & Co., the court-appointed monitor of the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights settlement, filed its first report in federal court on Wednesday, summarizing site visits to dozens of shelters and permanent housing projects. One 225-unit building had 83 vacancies with move-ins paused for remediation after a guest tried to steal copper wire from the water system, and a county master-leased project had 102 occupants in 169 beds, which its manager attributed to water damage, elevator outages and copper theft. The report said agencies rely on "numerous databases, self-reported information, manual data transfers, and decentralized reporting practices," and that staff at more than half the sites visited declined to answer questions or allow access.
Judge Carter named Nardello & Co. in May 2026 to monitor the 2022 settlement, which requires the city to create thousands of shelter and housing beds; he denied a receivership motion in 2025.