Homeless agents in Los Angeles have released reliable numbers. But this is in the fire

Among its supporters, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Administration has just begun to stride forward.

Last summer, the little-known but well-funded agency announced that after years of growth, homeless people have effectively upgraded in Los Angeles County. The results in the City of Los Angeles are even more encouraging, as the number of homeless “homeless” (people living on the streets) has dropped by more than 10%.

Lahsa’s senior executives promise to formally release the latest homeless figures in the coming months to the progress of the humanitarian crisis.

But the homeless in the city-county is not praised, but has been slammed from multiple directions and on the verge of being pulled apart.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors plans to vote on a plan to transfer more than $300 million of workers and hundreds of workers from Lahsa to the homeless department in New County. Officials in cash-strapped Los Angeles city have recently begun exploring similar steps.

Meanwhile, a federal judge has been lying. At a hearing last week, U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter criticized Lahsa’s figures as distrust, attacking its financial controls and even condemning the location of its office.

“I will never go into the office building in Lhasa again because it’s exaggerated,” Carter said.

Lahsa’s top executive VA Lecia Adams Kellum sent Carter last week an illuminating the improvement her agency has been working on. Carter’s response was accusing her of making a “meaningless” promise.

Adams Kellum, who took over Lahsa two years ago, said her agency had been working to improve its data collection and upgrade its systems to track available asylum beds the day after the court hearing. She said Lahsa increased the number of homeless people in 2023-24, with the number of people entering temporary housing increasing by 32%.

“I know Lahsa and the overall housing system need a big change,” she said in an interview. “We’re definitely making a big progress in creating that change.”

Lahsa has been a public punch bag for years, criticized by city leaders, county supervisors and other public officials who say its data collection is poor, its oversight is weak and its operational secrets.

In 2022, a Blue Ribbon Commission advises county officials to create their own homeless institutions and “simplify” Lhasa’s responsibilities. The authors write that systems serving the county’s unpopular population are under “tremendous pressure” and too many institutions are confused by their role.

With most county supervisors endorsing the retreat, some at the City Hall have expressed new concerns about the looming breakup. Council members said they had hardly heard whether the county’s most needed services for the area would undermine or even reduce services.

“When they get the money, they’re going to bring the best people out of Lhasa too,” said Councilman Bob Blumenfield. “I mean, they’re going to that organization and take away everyone who really knows what they’re doing and leave behind what’s left.”

City executives, the city’s top budget analyst, went further.

“It is worrying that if the organization loses more than half of its employees and nearly half of its funds, can the organization survive?” he said. “Or will it collapse?”

Lahsa Chaphup supporters say they have been working hard to reach this moment for years. They pointed out that the work of the Blue Belt Commission, and a series of highly critical audits, are the reasons for the decisive action.

A report produced by the county’s audit crew last year concluded that lax accounting procedures and poor written contracts prevented Lahsa from recovering the millions of dollars it provided to contractors for the 2017-2018 fiscal year. (LAHSA officials argue that full repayments will not be paid until 2027.)

Another audit requested by Carter found that Lahsa lacked sufficient financial oversight to ensure that its contractors provide the services they paid for. This makes the agency vulnerable to waste and fraud, the audit said.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who led the push for the new county agency, said the need to track homeless spending became even more urgent because of the passage of Measure A, a half million dollar sales tax approved by voters in November to cover housing and homeless services. She said the county’s direct oversight will ensure that these funds are paid appropriately.

“What we proposed on Tuesday was not to eliminate Lahsa,” said Hovas, who represented parts of the West End and San Fernando Valley. “It shrank down Lahsa and said the county is now mastering the money entrusted to it through this voting measure. It’s the money for the county.”

“A lot of homeless people here don’t know what money is happening here,” Colby Johnson, 32, said in front of Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Supervisor Hilda Solis offers a similar view, saying county-level agencies that provide homeless services such as the Ministry of Mental Health and Health Services operate more effectively, providing more accountability and communication more directly.

Lahsa will still conduct annual homeless counts and oversee the homeless management information system, a database that tracks services provided to the homeless, according to the reshuffle supporters. It will also continue to operate emergency shelters.

Founded in 1993, Lahsa is a joint authority serving cities and counties as part of an effort to improve coordination among homeless people. The agency has a board of 10 members, and the committee is evenly distributed between cities and counties.

According to the agency’s website, the county provides 40% of Lahsa’s $875 million budget, with another 35% coming from the city and the majority of the rest coming from state and federal governments.

The budget grew dramatically after passing the Measure H, which was the county sales tax in 2017 that brought hundreds of millions of dollars to homeless outreach, housing navigation and other social services each year. The agency has replaced hundreds of employees and now manages more than 800 contracts.

Even with the funds, the county’s homeless population is still around 75,000, according to Lahsa’s statistics last year.

“I just believe they are growing too fast,” said Kathryn Barger, Los Angeles County Supervisor. “The situation of having many contracts is not very fulfilling considering the rapid growth, hiring a lot of employees.”

Mayor Karen Bass, who won a commitment to respond to the crisis in 2022, agreed that homeless service systems require significant changes – not only in Lahsa, but in the county and her own offices, the program operates in safety, and she created a plan to transfer unforgettable Angelenos to mutual temporary and permanent housing.

Meanwhile, the bass is the most prominent public figure against the creation of the county’s homeless department, saying it will interrupt the success of the past two years.

According to Lahsa, it has been more than two years since the program entered the program by January 31, and Inside Safe has moved about 3,900 people into temporary housing, such as hotels and motels. In this total, nearly 900 people ended up entering permanent housing, while another 1,400 left the program by returning to the homeless, jailed or died.

“I hope the county considers the potential unintended consequences of doing so,” Bass said. “I think this will stop the movement that takes people off the streets.”

Mayor Karen Bass attended a press conference to open the 2025 Earl of Homelessness in Los Angeles in February.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

Elizabeth Mitchell, an attorney representing the Los Angeles Human Rights Alliance, resorted to Lahsa’s Homelessness Crisis to sue the Los Angeles Human Rights Alliance. But she expressed doubts about the county’s proposal, comparing it to the movement of the Titanic deck chair.

She criticized the county’s mental health department for saying that it would only be a small percentage of those who need to serve. She expressed doubts about county officials’ success in breaking down barriers that exist between departments.

“You are taking the money from one terrible organization … and transferring it to another terrible organization,” Mitchell said. His lawsuit and subsequent settlement were debated in Carter’s court.

If supervisors approve funds withdrawn on Tuesday, county officials will start setting up a new department with a budget that will quickly exceed $1 billion. The new agency will absorb 76 workers from the county’s CEO’s office, which oversees the pathway home, an initiative similar to internal security.

According to the county’s county report on the transition, the new agency will receive approximately 245 employees from the county’s Department of Health Services, a department’s program for homeless people with severe medical and behavioral conditions, and an estimated 384 DHS contract workers.

As many as 468 workers from Lahsa will also be moved to the new county agency, with all transfers completed on July 1, 2026, according to the Horvath office.

In 2025, the homeless people in Greater Los Angeles stood outside a tent in February.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

County officials will have to discuss services from the Service Employees International Alliance 721, which represents three-quarters of Lahsa workers. They have not yet made a timeline for transferring workers from several other agencies to new departments.

County Superintendent Holly Mitchell’s area stretches from Koreatown to Carson, who fears for a tense turnaround.

“Before we talk about a billion-dollar transfer, we need to make sure that this move is right and that everyone affected can weigh.”

Mitchell has expressed dissatisfaction with the county’s own homeless work in recent days. She said in parts of her area, residents have been waiting for outreach workers who have been awaiting years to go home for camp operations.

Nithya Raman, a Los Angeles City Council member who heads the council’s Homelessness Committee, said she doesn’t see how the new county agency will address the problems that plague the homeless service system.

“Until we can make these connections clearly, I still have great doubts that major changes will improve the lives of locals,” she said.

Councilman Monica Rodriguez, who has been calling on the city to establish its own homeless department, has no such annoyance, saying Los Angeles “can’t be tied to this sinking Titanic.”

County Supervisor Bag said she had no intention of changing the route. She described last week’s court hearing, where Carter opposed Lahsa in terms of his financial controls, which was “the final nail in the coffin.”

“Nothing can change my mind,” she said in an interview. “Nothing.”

Doug Smith, a staff member of the era, contributed to the report.