A recent court ordered audit of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) is emblematic of the problems we face at a federal level and how our governments waste our money with little to no accountability.
LAHSA was formed in 1993 as a joint authority of the city and county of Los Angeles to address the issue of homelessness in Los Angeles County. The vast majority of the problems exist within the city limits of Los Angeles.
We could probably stop there. Billions of dollars have been spent since then, and the problem of homelessness has only soared. Arguably the Authority’s biggest accomplishment is the renaming of “homeless” to “unhoused.” Symbolic of the Left and the services they provide, they are more successful in changing the nomenclature than solving the problem.
The audit was ordered by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, a Bill Clinton appointee, and performed by global advisory firm Alvarez & Marsal. A lawsuit was filed in 2020 by the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, a group representing business owners, residents, and property owners. It asserted that the LAHSA was not doing their job to provide shelter and services for people living on the streets. Otherwise, it was not a lawsuit to stop the expenditure. The assertion was the money was not being spent properly.
The audit found:
• Auditors were unable to verify the total amount spent on homelessness services due to inconsistent and incomplete financial records across LAHSA, the city, and the county.
• The report found glaring inconsistencies in how LAHSA tracked shelter beds and services, making it impossible to determine how many beds were available, occupied, or even functional at any given time.
• Auditors noted that LAHSA and the city routinely approved invoices from service providers without verifying whether the billed services were actually provided. Payments were often processed based on high-level summaries, with little scrutiny of receipts or actual service delivery.
• On average, 82 days passed between the start of a contract term and its official execution, meaning many service providers operated for months without signed agreements. Some contracts were signed after services had already been provided, raising concerns about oversight and compliance.
• The auditors reviewed provider invoices from fiscal year 2023-24 and found extreme differences in costs per bed per day, with personnel costs ranging from $67 to just $7; food costs varying from $18 to $7; and security costs fluctuating between $32 and $2. The audit found no clear explanation for these discrepancies.
• Nearly half (47.8%) of program participants exited back into homelessness, while just 22% found permanent housing, highlighting the lack of measurable outcomes despite billions in spending.
The effectiveness of the program is not really asserted here. Twenty-two percent found permanent housing, but how many found jobs, either got off drugs or got their drug problems under control, and how many returned to be functional members of our community? That should really be the measure of the program’s success, yet it is not even addressed.
As a result of the audit, Dr. Va Lecia Adams Kellum (LAHSA’s head), resigned the $430,000 position that she held for two years but said she was willing to remain around for 120 days. Local leadership lined up to praise Adams Kellum including the LAHSA board chairperson, Mayor Bass, and county supervisors. This is a woman who should have been fired for inept leadership.
This malfeasance has real life effects.
To give you an idea how misguided this program is, $1.3 billion was allocated in the 23-24 budget year but only $599 million was spent. That part is good. Then $961 million was allocated for 24-25 budget year. If they were spending significantly less the prior year, why didn’t they terminate those funds and then cut the budget to what they spent? That is not even considering the inefficiencies discovered in the audit. The audit caused LAHSA’s budget to finally be cut by $300 million. Frivolously wasting money is what they do. You can see why Mayor Bass is grappling with a $1 billion budget deficit.
That was while the city fire department was the same size as it was in 1960 with 1.5 million more residents today. Los Angeles city has one firefighter per 1,000 residents while other major cities across the nation have two. Firefighters are not the only problem. On the day of the horrific Pacific Palisades fires, 75 fire trucks were unusable because mechanics were not available to repair them. God forbid they would have brought in outside, non-union mechanics to do the repairs.
And how are the two issues tied together? KCAL News reviewed LAFD records and found that 17,000 fires were started in 2024 by the homeless. This is not new data. NBC found 13,909 fire incidents generated by homeless people in 2023. It is estimated the homeless (who represent 1% of the population) cause 50% of the fires. They are a real danger to the city and county.
I have said for a long time the elected officials care more about the homeless than they do about the housed. Now we know they don’t even care about the homeless. They blatantly waste our money. It is not difficult to project out the level of negligence there is within the California budget. After all, they acknowledged $32 billion in fraud just in one program – unemployment benefits.
The further away the Americans get from their government the more isolated it is from being reviewed.
You can now see how the LAHSA audit results are just a microcosm of what is being found in Washington. Thankfully, someone has decided to do something about it. So, what if a few eggs are getting broken — especially now that the prices have come down.