Supervisors propose county homeless department after audit exposes issues at LAHSA

Los Angeles County Supervisors are calling for a county-run homeless department after a recent audit found that the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority was having a number of issues, including the handling of funding provided for direct response to the homeless crisis.
The audit, which was requested by Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath in February, had its results publicly released on Tuesday, revealing that tens of millions of taxpayer dollars cannot be accounted for and that the county cannot correctly monitor where large amounts of cash are going. 
Citing several concerns about LAHSA’s management of the funding, the Auditor-Controller Department conducted audit found that the agency failed to recoup cash advances provided to subcontractors, failed to establish repayment schedules for subcontractors, lacked adequate records for tracking cash advanced that were awarded to other agencies and failed to adequately monitor contracts with recipient agencies. 
While LAHSA officials have disagreed with many of the issues laid out by the audit, they acknowledged that others have been recognized already. They said that some of the recommendations made by the auditor were already in the process of being implemented. 
Despite this, Supervisor Horvath is now planning to bring a motion forward that would make homeless response in a county-run department. She says that it would create more transparency and accountability on how public money is used, and expedite “real results on homelessness,” in a post on X. 
LAHSA CEO Va Lecia Adams Kellum, issued a statement in response to the audit, which said, “LAHSA has needed reform for some time. The audit confirms that. I came to LAHSA to lead change and fix the problems. Many of the issues outlined in the audit … have been addressed under our new leadership team, changes are underway.”
She attributed a large number of the issues to the agency’s fiscal practices in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.