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.
The Albuquerque City Council unanimously approved a fifth supplemental agreement with Holland & Hart LLP adding $1.6 million for the city's defense in LaDella Williams, et al. v. City of Albuquerque, raising the contract's maximum value to $2.66 million. The city has paid $1.368 million in legal fees and litigation expenses so far and said it has made more than 20 witnesses available for depositions. The class action, filed in December 2022 by unhoused residents over citations, arrests, fines and seizure of belongings during encampment clearings, is funded from the city's Risk Management Fund; the city said it cannot estimate the lawsuit's final cost.
District Judge Joshua Allison certified the case as a class action on Oct. 2, 2025, and the city appealed that decision to the New Mexico Court of Appeals on Oct. 17, 2025.
A jury trial opened Monday in an inverse-condemnation suit by two Tower Grove South homeowners who say the City of St. Louis let a Sudanese couple live in a tarp-and-shopping-cart structure on the sidewalk in front of their house for 44 months, from August 2020 until the city tore it down in April 2024. The plaintiffs seek $66,000, the rent they say the property could have earned; Assistant City Counselor Erin McGowan argued the city “was pouring resources to get them off the streets” and formed a task force in 2023. The trial is expected to last three days.
Media coverage at the time reported the couple back on the street at South Spring and Gravois within days of the April 2024 removal.
The 9th Circuit on Friday denied the Department of Veterans Affairs' petition for rehearing, with more than two-thirds of the court's 29 judges ruling against the VA, leaving in place U.S. District Judge David Carter's September 2024 order requiring 2,550 housing units — 750 temporary and 1,800 permanent — on the 400-acre West LA VA campus. The court said no further rehearing petitions will be entertained. The VA declined to comment.
The 2024 order sets deadlines of 750 temporary units within 18 months and 1,800 permanent units within six years.
The San Francisco Standard · on the postponed Harrison Street encampment sweep
Berkeley announced last week it would clear the Harrison Street encampment September 8 but has postponed the sweep until after a September 8 status hearing before U.S. District Judge Edward Chen, who has ruled the city may dismantle the camp only after relocating 23 disabled residents and storing their possessions. Berkeley Homeless Union president Yesica Prado toured five candidate tent sites with city representatives; per Prado, the city dismissed four and said the fifth, on Camelia Street, could accommodate only two people.
Notices to residents had set the Eighth and Harrison closure for September 8; both sides update Judge Chen on relocation progress at that day's hearing.
Twelve current and former tenants of Blue Butterfly Village, a 74-townhome complex for formerly homeless female veterans in San Pedro, filed suit in Los Angeles County Superior Court against nonprofit landlord Volunteers of America, alleging neglected maintenance, uninhabitable conditions and harassment of residents who complained. The complex was redeveloped with about $12 million in state and local funding, loans, waived fees and donated land. LAist reported through a public records request that the city Housing Authority has placed at least three units there under abatement in recent years.
LAHSA's 2026 count found about 2,250 veterans experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles County on a given night, down about 42% from 2020.
Kristine Eno sued Central City Concern and Multnomah County for $3 million, alleging the provider failed to conduct wellness checks on her brother Eric Eno at the Shoreline transitional/parole residential complex and that his body went undiscovered for approximately 11 days. The suit is one of seven similar legal claims over bodies that went undiscovered in the nonprofit's transitional units, and it alleges 34 undetected deaths across the 2,400 public housing units Central City Concern runs in the county.
A prior wrongful-death case involved Brendan Mackey, who died at the same Shoreline facility in February 2024.
U.S. District Judge Edward Chen issued an August 20 ruling making permanent a set of protections for Berkeley Homeless Union members, under which vehicles used as shelter cannot be impounded unless they pose a concrete safety threat and members must be allowed to relocate during a camp closure or be given a replacement tent if their dwelling is destroyed. BHU attorney Anthony Prince said hundreds of members live in at least 12 encampments across the city. Residents of the Eighth and Harrison encampment have received notice that the camp will be closed on September 8.
Under Chen's earlier order, homeless advocates were required to propose, and city officials to approve or reject, a list of new campsites for 23 camp residents by August 27.
San Francisco Chronicle · on Berkeley's Eighth-and-Harrison encampment
The Chronicle reported that the Harrison Street encampment in West Berkeley became the subject of a widely shared online debate this week after a local television reporter posted a video of the camp near UC Berkeley student housing, and recounted the litigation that has kept the camp in place. The paper cited a 2026 point-in-time count finding roughly 880 homeless people in Berkeley, about 11% of Alameda County's total.
Under U.S. District Judge Edward Chen's August 13 order, advocates must propose relocation sites for 23 camp residents by August 27, which the city then approves or rejects.
U.S. District Judge Edward Chen rejected homeless advocates' request for a long-term postponement of Berkeley's closure of the Eighth and Harrison streets encampment, writing that he "expects the Harrison encampment will, in short order, be abated." His order requires advocates to generate, and the city to approve or reject, a list of proposed new campsites for 23 residents by August 27, and requires the city to continue the disability-accommodation assessments and property storage he ordered in April. City attorneys said the camp now has about 80 residents; advocates estimated around 35 in June 2025 and 40 in February.
Berkeley posted notices July 27 ordering the area cleared by August 3, before Chen ordered the city to hold off pending the hearing.
A Portland jury on Tuesday rejected Kenneth Voyles' $10 million civil claim against business owner James Grant, who shot Voyles three times after Voyles burglarized his stone countertop business while homeless. The jury sided 10–2 with Grant, declining to find the shooting unjustified, after deliberating only a few hours.
The lawsuit, filed May 6, 2026 over a March 2023 shooting, sought $5 million in compensatory and $5 million in punitive damages.
Kenneth Voyles, who was shot after breaking into Touchstone Granite & Marble on Northeast Columbia Boulevard in March 2023, is suing the business and owner James Grant for $10 million in Multnomah County, alleging battery, assault, negligence, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The complaint seeks $5 million in compensatory and $5 million in punitive damages and says Voyles entered the closed shop seeking warmth and food.
The lawsuit was filed May 6, 2026, over an incident on March 6, 2023.