Dallas City Hall has done a poor job keeping an eye on the people and agencies it has tasked with helping the homeless, an internal audit concluded Monday. And the city has little, if any idea, who is being helped and how.

Because of a lack of city oversight of the nonprofit Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance, which has been spearheading Dallas' homeless-relief efforts for more than a decade, millions of dollars have probably been left on the table that could have gone toward sheltering the unsheltered, says the audit — the most scathing account of Dallas' struggle to address a growing homeless population.

Top city officials said the audit only confirmed what they already knew. After all, homeless encampments are ubiquitous, disparate relief efforts pop up here and there, and looking for better data to help clean up the mess is often fruitless. Officials said they are already implementing changes and now have the proof they need to push forward.

Nadia Chandler-Hardy, the city's chief of community services, said the city needed "an overhaul across the board." The audit, she said, "just kind of solidifies things to me. Now I feel like I really got the baton and I can run."

City auditor Craig Kinton's lengthy report, sent to the City Council Friday night, said MDHA's recently implemented centralized database, called a Homeless Management Information System, is incomplete and failed to take into account the varying needs of the homeless service providers, chief among them The Bridge downtown, which serves some 7,000 people annually.

As a result, says the audit, The Bridge was "pushed to the brink," and twice in 2017 flirted with having to close its doors after the city withheld $4 million in funding due to incomplete documentation, which the report says The Bridge was trying to fill out "in good faith."

Even "a temporary closure would damage the city's homeless response system," says the audit.

The city has already seen, since 2013, its unsheltered population quadruple to 1,087. Meanwhile, the city's homeless population, which stands at 3,789, increased by only about 600 people in that time.

Sam Merten, The Bridge's chief operating officer, said in a statement Monday that he was pleased that the audit showed how "HMIS-related issues beyond our control" risked harming the city's services.

A renewal for an interlocal agreement with The Bridge — a frequent punching bag for some City Council members and downtown-area residents who believe it's a lousy neighbor — is scheduled for a council vote Wednesday. The council will also vote to deposit $1 million in funds from Dallas County earmarked for homeless assistance services.

1 / 13"These Are They" Homeless Outreach held their 1st Annual Holiday Helping Hand for the homeless on Saturday, Dec. 9, 2017, at Park Ave. and Marilla Street in downtown Dallas. DeAnna Brown, Executive Director, center, said they served hot meals, distributed hundreds of sleeping bags, blankets, clothes, coats, shoes and sack lunches on Saturday. They also serve 80 sack lunches every week on Park Avenue to the homeless. (Irwin Thompson / Staff Photographer) 2 / 13"These Are They" Homeless Outreach held their 1st Annual Holiday Helping Hand for the homeless on Saturday, Dec. 9, 2017, at Park Ave. and Marilla Street in downtown Dallas. They served hot meals, distributed hundreds of sleeping bags, blankets, clothes, coats, shoes and sack lunches on Saturday. They also serve 80 sack lunches every week on Park Avenue to the homeless.(Irwin Thompson / Staff Photographer) 3 / 13Charles Davis clears off an area on the St. Paul St. overpass of I-30 before laying down his bedding in downtown Dallas at Monday, December 11, 2017. He said he's been on the street for years. (Ron Baselice/The Dallas Morning News)(Ron Baselice / Staff Photographer) 4 / 13Sven Nickerson hands out plates of food to the homeless. "These Are They" Homeless Outreach held their 1st Annual Holiday Helping Hand for the homeless on Saturday, Dec. 9, 2017 at Park Ave. and Marilla Street in downtown Dallas. DeAnna Brown, Executive Director, said they served hot meals, distributed hundreds of sleeping bags, blankets, clothes, coats, shoes and sack lunches on Saturday. They also serve 80 sack lunches every week on Park Avenue to the homeless. (Irwin Thompson/The Dallas Morning News)(Irwin Thompson) 5 / 13Michael Shirley, left, crosses St. Paul and Griffin streets with an unidentified man south of downtown Dallas at Monday, December 11, 2017. He said he just got out of jail. (Ron Baselice/The Dallas Morning News)(Ron Baselice / Staff Photographer) 6 / 13"These Are They" Homeless Outreach held their 1st Annual Holiday Helping Hand for the homeless on Saturday, Dec. 9, 2017, at Park Ave. and Marilla Street in downtown Dallas. They served hot meals, distributed hundreds of sleeping bags, blankets, clothes, coats, shoes and sack lunches on Saturday. They also serve 80 sack lunches every week on Park Avenue to the homeless.(Irwin Thompson / Staff Photographer) 7 / 13Lisa Kelso curls up under a blanket intersection on St. Paul St. at the intersection of Jackson streets in downtown Dallas Monday, December 11, 2017. She said she has been on the street for about a year. (Ron Baselice/The Dallas Morning News)(Ron Baselice / Staff Photographer) 8 / 13"These Are They" Homeless Outreach held their 1st Annual Holiday Helping Hand for the homeless on Saturday, Dec. 9, 2017, at Park Ave. and Marilla Street in downtown Dallas. They served hot meals, distributed hundreds of sleeping bags, blankets, clothes, coats, shoes and sack lunches on Saturday. They also serve 80 sack lunches every week on Park Avenue to the homeless.(Irwin Thompson / Staff Photographer) 9 / 13Lisa Kelso watches pedestrians pass her on St. Paul St. at the intersection of Jackson St. in downtown Dallas Monday, December 11, 2017. She said she has been on the street for about a year. (Ron Baselice/The Dallas Morning News)(Ron Baselice / Staff Photographer) 10 / 13U.S. Senator John Cornyn, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, right, and other volunteers hand out socks, sweatshirts and other clothing to homeless people on Tuesday, November 21, 2017 at The Bridge Homeless Recovery Center in downtown Dallas. (Ashley Landis / Staff Photographer) 11 / 13Hazardous material workers rip up a tent after the city closed a large homeless encampment under Interstate 30 on 3rd Avenue in Dallas on July 25, 2017.(Nathan Hunsinger / Staff Photographer) 12 / 13A mirrored cabinet is left to be thrown away in a large homeless encampment under that was shut down under Interstate 30 on 3rd Avenue in Dallas on July 25, 2017.(Nathan Hunsinger / Staff Photographer) 13 / 13Hazardous material workers throw away a grill shell and property after the city closed a large homeless encampment under Interstate 30 on 3rd Avenue in Dallas on July 25, 2017. (Nathan Hunsinger / Staff Photographer)

The agreement with The Bridge includes more demands from the city, such as a "good neighbor provision" and more contract monitoring. City officials also want the nonprofit to rely more on nongovernmental funding. Chandler-Hardy, who joined the city earlier this year, said leaders took their eye off the ball for a few years and "things fell through the cracks."

"As we tighten up things around here and run a tighter ship, we also want to make sure our partners are doing the same," Chandler-Hardy said.

Merten said The Bridge is "working closely with the city" to resolve any issues.

"And we look forward to continuing to provide top-notch recovery services to citizens experiencing homelessness in our community," he said.

Council member Mark Clayton, who co-chairs a new regional homelessness services partnership, said he feels the newfound attention on the issue is positive.

One consistent theme is a lack of data, he said. Kinton's audit notes that the HMIS database covers just 30 percent of all the beds being utilized by the service providers to whom the city has historically outsourced its homeless care. As a result, the audit says, Dallas is near the very bottom of the list of 402 cities contributing to the National Homeless Information Project , which shares best practices aimed at housing, feeding, clothing and employing the homeless.

The audit is critical of the database, which was created by a company that had never before done such work, and the way it was implemented by MDHA. The report says the way MDHA used the database "did not meet the needs" of the city's five largest homeless service providers: The Bridge, the Union Gospel Mission, Dallas Life, the Austin Street Shelter and the Salvation Army.

The audit also raises concerns with the way MDHA's board went about selecting the vendor — without going through competitive bidding procedures. As a result, says the audit, MDHA "violated federal procurement requirements and could result in the loss of the HMIS' federal funding."

At the time, there was but one Dallas official on the MDHA board: Bernadette Mitchell, at the time the head of Dallas Housing and Community Services. That department came under fire in a 2016 audit that said Kinton's staff couldn't find paperwork documenting how developers spent $29.9 million intended for affordable housing.

Via email, MDHA president and CEO Cindy Crain said that her board received the audit Sunday, and that it will be reviewed for a full response at its next meeting in mid-January.

But Kinton and his staff also blame the city for the situation: "During implementation period, the city's oversight of MDHA was inadequate."

City Manager T.C. Broadnax called the audit "a starting point."

"And we have already begun to reset the deck with expectations and accountability of staff as well as our providers," Broadnax said.

The need for accountability is a staple of Kinton's audits in recent years. And Broadnax said enough is enough.

"From my understanding of previous audits, and not just in the homeless area, it's clear we don't always cross our t's and dot our i's and our policies and processes are sometimes lacking," he said. "I look forward to implementing the things that were recommended and we agreed to and working more closely with our providers and our own internal departments to do a better job at how we deal with homelessness in this community."

Correction, 9:45 a.m., Dec. 12, 2017: This story has been revised to reflect that Nadia Chandler-Hardy was hired earlier this year, not last year.