Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority

Rebecca Isaacs was chosen Friday as executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a joint city and county unit. Isaacs, an attorney, is executive director of the Inner City Law Center, which advocates for low-income and homeless people throughout Los Angeles County. The authority, known as LAHSA, works with nonprofit groups to help fund and maintain programs for the homeless. Both the city and county appoint commissioners who oversee the agency.

The number of homeless people living in Los Angeles County on a given night has dropped significantly in the last two years, but more people are concentrated in downtown Los Angeles' skid row, according to a survey by a city-county agency. Countywide, the number of homeless dropped from 88,000 in 2005 to 74,000 this year, according to a federally required biennial report of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. The 5,100 people sleeping on skid row represent a 40% jump from 2005.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Wednesday named the executive director of a downtown business association to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority board. Estela Lopez heads the Central City East Assn., which represents businesses and property owners in and around downtown's skid row. Villaraigosa also has nominated Ramona Ripston, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, to the board.

As the thermometer plunged toward the freezing mark Thursday night, Roland Jones donned seven T-shirts and four sweat shirts and pulled a sleeping bag over his wheelchair. And then, outside near the corner of 6th and San Pedro streets in skid row, his home of the last six years, Jones tried to go to sleep.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority held the first of several public hearings Thursday designed to let homeless agencies coordinate their strategies. The meeting, held in South-Central Los Angeles, was attended by several agencies that work under the umbrella of the authority, a joint city-county operation that coordinates homeless services.

Its backers call it a shelter, but critics say it's camouflage. The project in question is a proposed $4-million drop-in center for the homeless that would turn a former Salvation Army rehabilitation facility in an industrial part of Downtown Los Angeles into a 50-bed complex with showers, an outdoor recreation area and mail service.

A Chatsworth-based attorney has been selected chairman of the 10-member Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. In a 9-0 vote, William Powers was elected to head the authority, which develops and implements programs and makes recommendations to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to assist the homeless. "I'm just grateful that my peers had the confidence in me to name me chairman," said Powers, who has been a member of the authority since 1995.

The San Fernando Valley Homeless Shelter, located this year for the first time at the Sylmar Army National Guard Armory, is now open every night until the end of February, officials said. "Officially, we've been open since November, but only on nights when the temperature was 40 degrees or below," said Joe Zuniga, program coordinator for the Valley shelter. "[Monday] is the first night the shelter will be continuously open, regardless of the weather," he said.

The head of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority announced his resignation Friday, capping months of speculation that he would leave the agency, which has been criticized for what some consider lackluster efforts at dealing with the problem of homelessness. Mitchell Netburn said he was leaving the joint city-county agency effective May 19 to work for a private nonprofit agency in New York City that helps disadvantaged people.

After a stormy night that left Los Angeles slick with rain, it was hardly a surprise to find City Councilwoman Jan Perry hunting down fresh funding Tuesday for year-round homeless shelters that offer warm beds at night. The twist was that she left City Hall to do it, marching up the hill to urge the county Board of Supervisors to help scrape together the cash. An estimated 84,000 people are homeless on any given night in Los Angeles County.

Rebecca Isaacs has her work cut out for her. The Santa Monica lawyer took over this week as head of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, an agency that coordinates programs and distributes as much as $60 million in public money annually. The agency has been around for more than a decade, but has been roiled by financial and administrative turmoil over the last year after auditors discovered it had little cash on hand, was mishandling grant money and owed money to local aid groups.

Rebecca Isaacs was chosen Friday as executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a joint city and county unit. Isaacs, an attorney, is executive director of the Inner City Law Center, which advocates for low-income and homeless people throughout Los Angeles County. The authority, known as LAHSA, works with nonprofit groups to help fund and maintain programs for the homeless. Both the city and county appoint commissioners who oversee the agency.

The head of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority announced his resignation Friday, capping months of speculation that he would leave the agency, which has been criticized for what some consider lackluster efforts at dealing with the problem of homelessness. Mitchell Netburn said he was leaving the joint city-county agency effective May 19 to work for a private nonprofit agency in New York City that helps disadvantaged people.

The head of the Los Angeles Homeless Authority may step down in the coming months, sources said Friday, just as the city is making a new push to clean up skid row. Mitchell Netburn told authority board members Friday that he was looking for another job, sources close to the organization said. But he is expected to remain in place at least until the agency brings on a new chief financial officer, as soon as the end of this month.

The general manager of the Los Angeles Housing Department has accused the city-county homeless agency of mismanaging money and called for an immediate management audit of the agency. Mercedes Marquez, the general manager, requested the audit of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA, in a letter sent Tuesday to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. In the letter, Marquez wrote that the agency, because of accounting issues, didn't know it had $1.

A divided Los Angeles City Council confirmed the mayor's appointment of a third person with ties to the ACLU to a panel on homelessness Wednesday, ending a bruising political battle over how their appointments would affect the city's efforts to clean up skid row.

Homeless rights activists' seven-day demonstration at a boarded-up hotel ended Wednesday morning when police arrested five people and dispersed a group of about 30 who had been sleeping there. Santa Monica Police Department spokesman Lt. Gary Gallinot said 29 people voluntarily left the Flamingo Hotel in the 1700 block of Ocean Avenue when police arrived at 5 a.m. Wednesday. Demonstrators at the hotel complained that there is a shortage of shelters for the homeless in Santa Monica.

County officials mounted a vigorous defense Tuesday against claims by Mayor James K. Hahn and other city officials that Los Angeles County is shirking its share of the responsibility for helping the homeless. Hahn said this week that the county has failed to fulfill what he said was a 1993 pledge to match city spending on homeless programs, an assertion that county Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke called "very disturbing."

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Wednesday named the executive director of a downtown business association to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority board. Estela Lopez heads the Central City East Assn., which represents businesses and property owners in and around downtown's skid row. Villaraigosa also has nominated Ramona Ripston, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, to the board.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has nominated the head of the local American Civil Liberties Union to the region's top homeless agency, angering those who believe the ACLU has stymied solutions to one of the nation's largest homeless problems. Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California, is one of four nominees the mayor's office hopes will fill seats on the 10-member Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority board.