To its supporters, the Los Angeles Homeless Providers Authority was simply beginning to hit its stride.
Final summer time, the little-known however well-funded company introduced that homelessness had successfully leveled off throughout Los Angeles County after years of will increase. Outcomes for the town of Los Angeles had been much more encouraging, with the variety of “unsheltered” homeless — individuals dwelling on the road — falling by greater than 10%.
LAHSA’s high executives have promised to point out extra progress in opposition to the humanitarian disaster within the coming months, when the newest homelessness numbers are formally launched.
However as a substitute of drawing reward, the city-county homeless company is underneath fireplace from a number of instructions — and on the verge of being pulled aside.
On Tuesday, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote on a plan to maneuver greater than $300 million and tons of of employees out of LAHSA and into a brand new county homelessness division. Officers within the cash-strapped metropolis of L.A. not too long ago started exploring the same step.
In the meantime, a federal decide has been savaging LAHSA. At a listening to final week, U.S. District Decide David O. Carter criticized LAHSA’s numbers as untrustworthy, assailed it over its monetary controls and even denounced the placement of its places of work.
“I’ll by no means go into LAHSA’s workplace constructing once more as a result of it’s ostentatious,” mentioned Carter, who oversees settlement agreements on the allocation of homeless companies.
Va Lecia Adams Kellum, chief govt of the Los Angeles Homeless Providers Authority, attends a press convention to begin the 2025 Larger Los Angeles Homeless Rely in February.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Occasions)
LAHSA’s high govt, Va Lecia Adams Kellum, despatched Carter a letter final week spelling out the enhancements her company has been engaged on. Carter responded by accusing her of constructing “meaningless” guarantees.
Adams Kellum, who took over LAHSA two years in the past, mentioned the day after the courtroom listening to that her company has been working to enhance its knowledge assortment and improve its system for monitoring obtainable shelter beds. LAHSA elevated the variety of homeless individuals moved off the road and into interim housing by 32% in 2023-24, she mentioned.
“I took the job realizing that LAHSA and the housing system as an entire wanted vital change,” she mentioned in an interview. “We’ve got undoubtedly made substantial progress in creating that change.”
LAHSA has been a public punching bag for years, drawing criticism from metropolis leaders, county supervisors and different public officers who say its knowledge assortment has been poor, its oversight weak and its operations secretive.
In 2022, a blue ribbon fee beneficial that county officers create their very own homelessness company and “streamline” LAHSA’s duties. The system for serving the county’s unhoused inhabitants is underneath “super pressure,” with too many companies confused about their position, the authors wrote.
With a majority of the county supervisors endorsing a pullout, some at Metropolis Corridor are expressing contemporary issues concerning the looming breakup. Council members mentioned they’ve heard little from the county on whether or not companies to the area’s neediest might be disrupted and even decreased.
“Once they take their cash, they’re going to take the very best individuals out of LAHSA too,” mentioned Councilmember Bob Blumenfield. “I imply, they’re going to intestine that group, take all the oldsters that truly know what they’re doing, and depart us with what’s left.”
Metropolis Administrative Officer Matt Szabo, the town’s high finances analyst, went additional.
“The priority is, can a company survive if it loses greater than half its workers and almost half its funding?” he mentioned. “Or will it simply collapse?”
Backers of the LAHSA shakeup say they’ve been working to get to this second for years. They level to the work of the blue ribbon fee and a string of extremely vital audits as causes for taking decisive motion.
One report, produced by the county’s auditor-controller final 12 months, concluded that lax accounting procedures and poorly written contracts had prevented LAHSA from recouping thousands and thousands of {dollars} it had supplied to its contractors as an advance within the 2017-2018 fiscal 12 months. (LAHSA officers contend that full compensation was not due till 2027.)
One other audit, demanded by Carter, discovered that LAHSA lacks enough monetary oversight to make sure that its contractors ship the companies they’re paid to offer. That has left the company weak to waste and fraud, the audit mentioned.
L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who’s spearheading the push for a brand new county company, mentioned the necessity to observe homeless spending has turn out to be much more pressing following the passage of Measure A, a half-cent gross sales tax accepted by voters in November to pay for housing and homeless companies. Direct oversight by the county will guarantee these funds are correctly spent, she mentioned.
“What we’re proposing on Tuesday doesn’t erase LAHSA,” mentioned Horvath, who represents elements of the Westside and San Fernando Valley. “It scales again LAHSA, and it says that the county is now taking authority over the cash that’s entrusted to it by this poll measure. It’s the county’s cash.”
“Numerous the homeless out right here don’t know what’s occurring out right here for funding,” mentioned Colby Johnson, 32, left, about lack of monetary oversight for homelessness spending, in entrance of his tent in Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Occasions)
Supervisor Hilda Solis supplied the same perspective, saying the county companies that present homeless companies, such because the Division of Psychological Well being and the Division of Well being Providers, function extra effectively, present extra accountability and have interaction in additional direct communication.
Supporters of the shakeup say that LAHSA would nonetheless conduct the annual homeless rely and oversee the Homeless Administration Info System, a database that tracks the companies supplied to homeless people. It might additionally proceed to function emergency shelters.
LAHSA was fashioned in 1993 as a joint powers authority serving each the town and the county, as a part of an effort to enhance coordination on homelessness. The company has a 10-member board that’s equally break up between the town and the county.
The county supplies 40% of LAHSA’s $875-million finances, with one other 35% coming from the town and a lot of the relaxation from the state and federal governments, in keeping with the company’s web site.
That finances grew dramatically following the passage of Measure H, a 2017 county gross sales tax that generated tons of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} annually for homeless outreach, housing navigation and different social companies. The company took on tons of of further staff and now manages greater than 800 contracts.
Even with these funds, the county’s homeless inhabitants stays at about 75,000, following 5 years of will increase, in keeping with LAHSA’s rely from final 12 months.
“I simply imagine that they grew too quick,” mentioned L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who has been pushing for withdrawal of Measure A funds from LAHSA. “It was not effectively thought out to develop that rapidly, rent that many workers, have that many contracts.”
Mayor Karen Bass, who gained workplace in 2022 on a promise to fight the disaster, mentioned she agrees that the homeless companies system wants main modifications — not simply at LAHSA however on the county and inside her personal workplace, which operates Inside Secure, a program she created to maneuver unhoused Angelenos into interim and everlasting housing.
On the similar time, Bass has been essentially the most outstanding public determine to talk out in opposition to the creation of the county homelessness division, saying it’ll interrupt the successes of the previous two years.
By Jan. 31, greater than two years into this system, Inside Secure had moved about 3,900 individuals into interim housing, reminiscent of inns and motels, in keeping with LAHSA figures. Of that whole, almost 900 ultimately made it into everlasting housing, whereas one other 1,400 had left this system, both by returning to homelessness, going to jail or dying.
“I need the county to consider the potential unintended penalties of doing this,” Bass mentioned. “I feel it will cease the ahead motion of getting individuals off the road.”
Mayor Karen Bass attends the press convention to open the Los Angeles Homeless Providers Authority’s 2025 Larger Los Angeles Homeless Rely in February.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Occasions)
Legal professional Elizabeth Mitchell, who represents the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, which sued the town and county over their dealing with of the homelessness disaster, had little constructive to say about LAHSA. However she sounded skeptical of the county’s proposal, evaluating it to the motion of deck chairs on the Titanic.
She criticized the county Division of Psychological Well being, saying it helps solely a fraction of those that want its companies. And she or he voiced doubts that county officers will efficiently break down the boundaries that exist between their varied departments.
“You’re taking cash away from one horrible group … and shifting it to a different horrible group,” mentioned Mitchell, whose lawsuit and subsequent settlement agreements have been debated in Carter’s courtroom.
If the supervisors approve the funding pullout on Tuesday, county officers would start forming a brand new division whose finances would rapidly exceed $1 billion. The brand new company would take in an estimated 76 employees from the county’s chief govt workplace, which oversees Pathway Dwelling, an initiative much like Inside Secure.
The brand new company would soak up about 245 staff from the county’s Division of Well being Providers, which runs Housing for Well being, a program concentrating on homeless individuals with critical medical and behavioral situations, plus an estimated 384 DHS contract employees, in keeping with a county report on the transition.
As many as 468 employees from LAHSA would additionally transfer to the brand new county company, with all of the transfers accomplished by July 1, 2026, in keeping with Horvath’s workplace.
Two individuals stand exterior a tent in the course of the Los Angeles Homeless Providers Authority 2025 Larger Los Angeles Homeless Rely in Febraury.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Occasions)
County officers should focus on the modifications with Service Staff Worldwide Union Native 721, which represents three-fourths of LAHSA’s employees. And so they have but to offer a timeline for shifting employees from a number of different companies into the brand new division.
County Supervisor Holly Mitchell, whose district stretches from Koreatown to Carson, is fearful concerning the tight turnaround.
“Earlier than we discuss a billion-dollar switch, we have to guarantee that this transfer is true, and that everyone that’s impacted … will get to weigh in,” Mitchell mentioned.
Mitchell has voiced dissatisfaction in current days with the county’s personal work on homelessness. In elements of her district, residents have waited years for outreach employees from Pathway Dwelling to hold out encampment operations, she mentioned.
L.A. Metropolis Councilmember Nithya Raman, who heads the council’s homelessness committee, mentioned she doesn’t see how a brand new county company will repair the issues plaguing the homeless companies system.
“Till we are able to make these connections clearly, I stay very skeptical that large modifications will end in enhancements to the lives of individuals on the bottom,” she mentioned.
Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who has been calling for the town to create its personal homelessness division, had no such qualms, saying that L.A. “can’t be left strapped to this sinking Titanic.”
Barger, the county supervisor, mentioned she has no intention of adjusting course. She described final week’s courtroom listening to, the place Carter railed in opposition to LAHSA over its monetary controls, because the “ultimate nail within the coffin.”
“Nothing can change my thoughts,” she mentioned in an interview. “Nothing.”
Occasions workers author Doug Smith contributed to this report.
