A radical reshaping of LA County's homeless services system is proposed

LOS ANGELES — A proposal to radically reshape how the county spends billions of dollars on homelessness will be before the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.

Responding to long-standing dissatisfaction over the effectiveness of homelessness programs, Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Kathryn Barger are proposing a new county department that would take over hundreds of millions of dollars of contracts currently overseen by the much-maligned Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority and consolidate programs scattered among several county agencies.

The intent of the proposal is to reduce the functions of the city-county joint authority to those mandated by the federal government: maintaining a homeless database, conducting the annual point-in-time count and providing limited services, including the winter shelter program that was recently expanded into a year-round emergency response effort.

But, if approved, the Horvath and Barger motion would not immediately take effect.

Instead, it would require the county chief executive to provide three reports: a feasibility report in 60 days, an analysis of which county and LAHSA programs would be absorbed by the new department in 90 days and a fiscal and staffing plan in 120 days.

A new vote would then be required to proceed.

LAHSA Chief Executive Va Lecia Adams Kellum, who came on board in March of 2023 with a mandate to reform the agency, said in an interview Monday that she would not oppose the measure but looked forward to working with the county on ways to "continue to fix the agency and not end it."

Adams Kellum said she has worked well with Horvath, who appointed herself to the LAHSA commission after her 2022 election, to reform the agency's well-known deficiencies.

"I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the supervisors to give this some time of reflection over the next 60 days," she said.

The proposal was timed to the release of an audit last week that found flaws in LAHSA's handling of contract money from Measure H, the quarter-cent homelessness sales tax approved by voters in 2017.

The audit, ordered by the supervisors in February, found no fraud or significant abuse, but identified systemic issues, including failure to recover millions of dollars advanced to contractors, late payments to contractors and inadequate monitoring of contracts.

In support of their motion, Horvath and Barger cited the passage of Measure A, doubling the homelessness sales tax, with a commitment to "increased transparency and accountability" as a signal that "now is the appropriate time for Los Angeles County to make meaningful changes called for by the public to more efficiently and effectively administer public funds and solve the homelessness crisis."

LAHSA officials contested many of the findings, saying the audit identified issues that had already been, or were being, fixed under Adams Kellum.

Created in 1993 as part of a settlement of a lawsuit between the city and county, LAHSA was given limited powers, with a mission of ending the bickering between the city and county over federal dollars for homeless housing and services.

In recent years, its mission has expanded into contract administration and direct services as county funds from Measure H and an exploding L.A. City homelessness budget have swelled its budget to $875 million this year.

The county motion does not make clear how the county funds would be untangled from the remainder of LAHSA's budget, which includes $306 million from the city, $145 million from the state and $73 million from the federal government.

Reaction from city leaders was mixed. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was skeptical.

"New urgency has been at the core of our work to bring people off the street, not the creation of new bureaucracy," Bass said in a statement. "We can't afford to just create new paperwork or slow momentum to reduce encampments and connect people with housing and mental health treatment.

"Collaboration is key — we must avoid a return to the failed past when the county and the city of L.A. operated in silos."

The idea of a new department intrigued Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who has frequently criticized LAHSA but also said he thinks Adams Kellum has been 1,000% better than past administrators and is making progress.

"I'm always worried about more government as opposed to 'streamlined' government," Blumenfield said. "God knows we have enough layers on homelessness. I can't keep track. There are so many layers of governance and organization that streamlining is music to my ears if we can actually do it the right way. Whether this is the right way, that's yet to be seen."

But Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who has introduced a motion calling for a Los Angeles city department of homelessness, sent Horvath a letter of support Monday.

"For too long the county and the city have relied on the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority to administer homeless funds and that has come at our great peril as revealed by a recent audit. My goal is for the departments to partner more efficiently and effectively administer public funds and actually solve the homelessness crisis."

Adams Kellum said she attributes the reduction in street homelessness recorded in the 2024 count to the recent trend of the city and county working cooperatively under Mayor Karen Bass and the supervisors.

The proposal would implement two recommendations of a Blue Ribbon Commission on Homelessness appointed by the board in 2021 to study LAHSA's governance structure. The commission's report in March 2022 called for creation of a county entity to consolidate homeless services and the "streamlining" of LAHSA to "transition away from direct services."

Adams Kellum said she took the helm at LASHA well aware of the board's frustration and the commission recommendations.

"We've known about these issues," she said. "We've been able to make impact quickly with a new leadership team because we came in with some idea of what was already in need of great repair."

The Blue Ribbon Commission's other recommendation, creating a new county entity, "would integrate funding, programs, oversight and implementation and administration of the complex network of services dedicated to addressing homelessness," the motion said.

An indication of the breadth of the proposal is a list of other county agencies that have assumed responsibility for homelessness. It includes the Department of Mental Health, the Department of Health Services, the Department of Public Health, the Department of Children and Family Services and the Department of Public Social Services.

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Times Staff Writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.