Although Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass warned that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a plan to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars to the homeless service department in the area, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass warned that “massive damage” has been caused in the area’s fight against homeless people.
With a 4-0 vote, supervisors signed the strategy, which formed a new county homeless department with a budget of over $1 billion almost immediately. By July 2026, the supervisor will Measurementstart from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Department or Lahsa to enter the new county agency.
Six months later, more than 700 county workers will be transferred to the new agency by January 1. The new department will take over hundreds of employees in Lahsa, a united city county agency that has been ridiculed by city council members, county supervisors and other officials for years.
County supervisors say the changes will allow them to oversee more directly, and ultimately, greater accountability than the measure generates half-cent sales tax funds, which funds Take effect Tuesday. The measure funding a range of housing and homeless services is an alternative to the alternative measure H, a quarter-cent sales tax approved in 2017.
“This moment is about the money the county has entrusted us and investing it in something that works,” Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said.
Supervisors said they are following the recommendations of the Blue Belt Commission, which in 2022 calls for a new county homeless organization and simplifying Lahsa’s responsibilities. They are also frustrated by a pair of stinging audits that severely criticized Lhasa’s oversight or lack of contracts and plans.
The vote was a serious failure for Beth, who he believes would lead to the creation of another bureaucracy while shifting the energy to efforts to move people indoors. Lahsa’s long-term future is being questioned as much of its budget plan disappears.
Hours before the meeting, Nithya Raman, the bass and city council member for the council’s Homelessness Committee, issued a warning to the supervisor that the changes would ultimately deprive the city of “basic resources.”
“This action will cause great damage to the progress we have made and bear the serious risk of worsening our homeless crisis rather than ending,” they wrote.
Five Council Members – Bob Blumenfield, Ysabel Jurado, Tim McOsker, Katy Yaroslavsky and Raman appeared in person to convey a similar message saying they were worried that the county would deal a fatal blow to Lahsa that would undermine their own efforts to fight homeless people. The city is already in a state of financial crisis and faces a budget shortage of less than $1 billion.
Raman said she and other council members had run for Measure A, encouraging Los Angeles residents to increase their sales taxes.
“I strongly believe that if these voters knew they didn’t move into the county from the city’s input and partnerships,” she said.
For Lahsa, founded in 1993, the decision will generate a financial earthquake as part of its efforts to ensure more collaborative work in homelessness. The county provides the largest share of Lahsa $875 million per year According to the agency’s website, that’s 40%, about $348 million. LAHSA officials said the vast majority of the county’s funds will go to new institutions.
Holvas said the county will soon flush with measures of income and cannot continue to maintain the status quo. She said that homelessness programs combined with multiple county departments will “fundamentally change supervision and accountability.”
The new agency will model based on housing from the county’s Department of Health Services’ health program, which Hovas calls “the most successful program of anything done in the county so far.” The initiative has a high success rate, she said, allowing people to enter permanent housing and retain their housing.
The program director Sarah Mahin told Supervisor Sarah Mahin on Tuesday that 2012 began in 2012 to accommodate homeless people who rotated in the county’s public hospital. Since then, it has expanded to more than 600 workers and an annual budget of $875 million.
The program includes homeless outreach teams, financial assistance for tenants at risk of eviction and funding for approximately 3,200 temporary housing beds.
“We can do big things – effective things,” Hovas said. “The health engineering housing, the supervisory committee created it.”
Donyielle Holley, director of homeless programs in Pomona City, welcomed the changes, saying they will ensure that homeless service systems are “responsible for the needs of all stakeholders.”
“The county will be more responsible for voters who pass Measure A,” she said.
But the South Los Angeles area of director Holly Mitchell extends from Koreatown to Carson, warning her colleagues that they are moving too quickly—no clear strategies to ensure that alternative agencies will perform better than Lahsa.
Mitchell tried to postpone the start date of the new agency, but still did not vote. She abstained from voting on the proposal itself.
Lahsa CEO Va Lecia Adams Kellum tried to shed light on her agency achievements over the past two years, just to let her microphone cut off her comments. Supervisor Kathryn Barger gave her 90 seconds, 30 more than the rest of the public.
Nathaniel Vergow, deputy chief program officer of Lahsa, told the board that he had spent his entire career ending homelessness and was willing to “explore any effort to move the needle meaningfully.”
“What I don’t understand, however, is the haste of the proposed strategy, the strategy of moving all services without a real plan,” he said. “The schedule is not a plan.”
Last summer, Lahsa reported that the county’s homeless people living on the streets (homeless people living on the streets) fell by about 5% across the county, and more than 10% of executives in La Lahsa have committed to reveal More progress In the next few weeks.
Critics say progress is too slow, especially in sharp contrast to the billions of dollars allocated. An audit commissioned by U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter finds Lahsa Lack of adequate financial supervision To ensure that its contractors provide paid services, it makes the agency prone to waste and fraud.
Last week, Adams Kellum sent Carter a letter saying her agent was working to improve its operations. Carter has been monitoring a case involving homeless services, and his response is to call these promises “meaningless.”
Bagh said she and her colleagues “don’t want to get out of Lhasa.” She assured that the new homeless department’s accountability will rest among five county supervisors.
“I could only speak for myself in Judge Carter’s court last week – it won’t get worse,” she said.
