Los Angeles will come under court supervision as it works to meet the terms of a 2022 homelessness settlement, after a federal court found the city in violation and ordered the appointment of a monitor to oversee its next steps.

In a ruling issued Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter declined to appoint a receiver—a more aggressive remedy—but found the city had failed to comply with several key provisions of the settlement agreement with the nonprofit LA Alliance for Human Rights.

That agreement required the city to create nearly 13,000 shelter beds by June 2027. Carter said a monitor will now track the city’s progress on a quarterly basis and help the court in supervising compliance.

The LA Alliance for Human Rights — a coalition of business owners and residents — filed the lawsuit in 2020, accusing the city and county of failing to adequately address the homelessness crisis. Carter has presided over the case since its inception, issuing several high-profile orders and closely monitoring the region’s progress.

In 2022, the city agreed to a five-year plan that included shelter bed creation benchmarks and commitments to house 60% of the city’s unsheltered population in each Los Angeles City Council district. Last month, Carter held a seven-day evidentiary hearing to assess whether the city had complied with the agreement — a process that ultimately led to this week’s ruling.

In a sharply worded 62-page order, Carter outlined four key ways the city violated its settlement with the LA Alliance. He said Los Angeles failed to produce a concrete plan to create 12,915 shelter or housing placements, consistently missed construction deadlines, misreported its progress on clearing encampments, and neglected to provide accurate and complete data to the court and other parties involved in the case.

“In short, the City has been on notice for years that its data collection and reporting is woefully insufficient,” Carter wrote, “but continues to ignore its responsibility to report accurate numbers to the Court.”

Despite his frustration, Carter stopped short of imposing a receivership—which the plaintiffs’ attorneys have requested—that would have transferred control over the city’s homelessness funding and strategy to a court-appointed third party. Instead, he directed the parties to select a monitor to help oversee its next steps.

Carter also laid out a detailed set of deadlines aimed at putting the city back on track. Among them: Los Angeles must submit a revised “bed plan” by Oct. 3, outlining how it will meet its 2027 obligations. It must also update its benchmark for bed creation, explain how each unit was “created,” and to begin submitting more detailed data on encampment reduction.

The city and the LA Alliance must jointly select a court monitor by Sept. 12, subject to the judge’s approval. Once appointed, the monitor will review the city’s quarterly progress reports and help the court track compliance with the settlement. The city will also be required to attend court hearings after each update, beginning on Nov. 12.

Carter said these requirements were already part of the city’s original obligations and warned that further noncompliance could result in sanctions.

Although the court declined to impose a receiver, some legal experts say the monitor could still play a meaningful role in holding the city accountable.

“While a court monitor is not given decision-making authority, a monitor can keep both the judge and the public informed about the facts,” said Gary Blasi, a UCLA professor of law emeritus who specializes in homelessness and public policy. “A monitor can help reduce the amount of confusion and misunderstanding about what is actually being accomplished, and at what cost.”

The monitor represents a new role in the case, said Matthew Umhofer, an attorney for LA Alliance. It is separate from the appointment of Michele Martinez as special master in 2022, when the court approved the original settlement and named her to assist in overseeing and enforcing the agreement.

The latest ruling sets the stage for more active court oversight in the years ahead.

Councilmember Monica Rodriguez — one of three city officials who had been subpoenaed by the plaintiffs, along with Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember Traci Park — said Wednesday that the appointment of an independent monitor and quarterly hearings will help create a “framework for sustained oversight” as the city works to fulfill its settlement obligations.

Rodriguez, who has been an outspoken critic of the city’s homeless response, added: “I will continue to advance solutions that are cost-effective, equitable and grounded in systemic change, and it is my hope that city leadership heeds this call from Judge Carter that the status quo is a nonstarter.”

In a statement sent to media outlets, the City Attorney’s Office said the court had “correctly rejected the Alliance’s radical request to appoint an unelected and unaccountable receiver,” while defending the city’s recent progress.

“Over the last three years, the City of Los Angeles has successfully moved thousands of Angelenos off the streets, into housing and services,” the statement read. “Thousands of new housing units have been built, and homelessness is down in LA for the first time in years.”

The city added that solving homelessness remains “a complex challenge” and noted the need for flexibility in how cities craft local solutions.

The court is also stepping up oversight of Los Angeles County. In a separate order issued on June 20, Carter approved the appointment of retired Orange County Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals as monitor for the county’s homelessness programs. The decision comes as the county works to meet its own terms under a parallel settlement with the LA Alliance.