Fury as LA bigwigs suddenly delay stripping hundreds of millions of your cash from failing agency

Los Angeles leaders blew past their own July 1 deadline to begin taking control of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars now managed by the scandal-plagued Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

The missed deadline is the latest setback in the city’s effort to fix a homelessness system battered by audits, scandals and growing public frustration.

Created jointly by the city and county in 1993, LAHSA is governed by a commission with half its members appointed by the Los Angeles mayor and the other half by the county’s five supervisors.

In April, Mayor Karen Bass warned that years of reports and studies had produced little action and urged City Hall to move quickly as Los Angeles County prepared to leave LAHSA.

Bass’s directive laid out a 30-, 45-, 60- and 90-day timeline for the city to begin overhauling how LA responds to homelessness.

The plan called for reviewing LAHSA, restructuring its governance and exploring whether the city should assume responsibility for many of the agency’s programs.

But months later, one of the first major steps has stalled.

In April, the City Council’s Homelessness and Housing Committee voted to hire an outside consultant to analyze how Los Angeles could begin taking over homelessness programs now run by LAHSA.

The committee is chaired by Councilmember Nithya Raman, who is challenging Bass in next year’s mayoral race.

A July 1 deadline was given but still no one has been hired for the roughly $450,000 consultant role, so the study never started.

Instead, the latest recommendation pushes completion of the work to December 2027, nearly a year and a half later. The delay comes as pressure on LAHSA continues to mount.

As previously reported by The Post, the Trump administration suspended nearly $200 million in federal homelessness funding flowing through LAHSA while HUD’s inspector general investigates allegations of financial mismanagement, conflicts of interest and poor contract oversight.

Federal officials say LAHSA failed to verify nearly 2,300 housing sites it was supposed to oversee. They also found roughly 70% of contracts tied to those sites showed no reported spending during the previous year.

Another city audit found about $513 million budgeted for homelessness programs went unspent because of staffing shortages and outdated technology systems.

Despite those findings, Los Angeles approved another $358 million for LAHSA in this year’s city budget, roughly a 5% increase over last year.

The delay is also putting new attention on City Hall itself.

As previously reported by The California Post, Homelessness and Housing Committee Chair Nithya Raman canceled multiple committee meetings after launching her mayoral campaign.

At one point, every meeting over a five-week stretch was canceled, leaving major homelessness proposals stalled.

Raman’s office previously blamed the cancellations on budget season and scheduling conflicts, arguing the committee continued working with urgency.

But some of her collgues disagreed.

“Sadly, Nithya Raman has continued to sit on any advancements of homelessness reform and our spending,” Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez previously told The California Post. “We are still sitting on a number of motions that are not advanced.”

Rodriguez has long argued that too many agencies share responsibility for homelessness, leaving no one fully accountable.

During a heated committee meeting in March, she summed up her frustration in six words: “Get me off this merry-go-round from hell.”

Homelessness has become the centerpiece of Raman’s mayoral campaign. 

She has pledged to cut unsheltered homelessness by at least 50% before the 2028 Olympics while promising tougher oversight and sweeping reforms.

The California Post reached out to Raman’s office for additional comment.