California didn't track $24 billion
Tomo Chien
April 10, 2024
Good morning. It’s Wednesday, and I’m reading about the Los Angeles food reviews the lawyers wouldn’t OK. Onto the five USC, LA and California stories you need to know for today.
1.
California threw $24 billion at its homelessness crisis over the last five years — but didn’t track which programs actually worked. In a scathing report, state auditors said they couldn’t assess the cost-effectiveness of most state homelessness initiatives because nobody tallied how many people the programs actually moved into permanent housing and how much they cost after 2021. Worse: Auditors said San Jose and San Diego couldn’t even produce a full accounting of what they actually spent state homelessness aid on.
2.
A man was shot and killed in broad daylight just south of the Coliseum yesterday. Police said the shooting occurred around 5 p.m. near a street vendor on the corner of Vermont Avenue and Martin Luther King Boulevard, and described the suspect as a man between 18 and 20 wearing a black hat, white shirt and tan or brown pants. The victim died on the scene.
3.
LA County agreed to pay a whopping $25-million settlement to the family of a deaf and autistic man who deputies shot and paralyzed three years ago. Deputies claimed that Isaias Cervantes, who was unarmed, lunged for one of their guns during a home visit before they shot him: a point that Cervantes’s attorney called a “complete fabrication.” But despite the unusually large settlement, the sheriff’s department said its deputies didn’t violate any policies — and said the incident was “traumatic for all involved.”
4.
A California court ruled that a Central Valley Assembly member can run in two elections at once. Republican Vince Fong — who’s the hand-picked successor of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — will run for both the U.S. House, which he seems likely to win, and for his uncontested seat in the state Assembly. It’s not clear what’ll happen if he wins both, and California’s secretary of state called the court’s ruling “absurd.”
5.
Hollywood producers already want to make a film about the $30 million Easter Sunday heist in the San Fernando Valley. The real-life story indeed sounds like a blockbuster movie: A crew of thieves, who likely had insider knowledge, disabled the building’s security cameras and possibly the neighborhood’s internet connection. They breached the roof, roped in and somehow cracked a vault without setting off any alarms. Then they burrowed through a concrete wall and made their getaway. “This one is pure ‘Oceans 11,’” one television writer said.
