is an accountability reporter who has covered local government in Southern California for more than a decade.
Shifting control of L.A. city homelessness spending away from the agency long entrusted with it to a department in city government could take a year and a half, city officials said Wednesday. Bringing that spending in house was one of several options discussed by city council members during a meeting of their housing and homelessness committee.
Another option they’re considering is having the money be managed by the county, which started setting up a homelessness department about a year ago. The city directs roughly $300 million per year to the L.A. Homeless Services Authority. L.A. County supervisors voted last April to withdraw funding for the agency, citing ongoing problems with the agency's oversight of homelessness funds. Now 10 months later, city officials are debating Just after Wednesday’s discussion ended, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’ office released a statement urging the council not to withdraw funding from LAHSA without a plan in place.Sign up for Building Your Block, a seven-issue newsletter course from LAist that explains the obstacles around housing development in L.A. and what you can do to make things better.“Withdrawing from LAHSA too quickly, without a plan and without the capacity, will no doubt cause unintended consequences that will leave more Angelenos to die on our streets,” Bass said in her statement. “What we need is a serious, thoughtful transition plan — the last thing we need is a new department and more bureaucracy.”shifting the funding from LAHSA to direct city controlCouncilmember Bob Blumenfield, who sits on the council’s housing and homelessness committee, said he’d be open to having the county handle the city’s homelessness spending if the county doesn’t charge the city for overhead costs. ”If they're doing that, then I might be willing to say, 'OK, let's give them some of our money.' … That's going help our programs and give us a more efficient route,” Blumenfield said. “We also need to get down to brass tacks and understand what it means financially.”. That rate is 8% for the county’s funds at LAHSA, which will be pulled from the agency July 1 and shifted to the new county department. Councilmember Tim McOsker said he was leaning toward working with the county on a limited number of programs, like interim housing. City officials said they currently lack staff dedicated to advising them on homelessness policy and setting up the infrastructure to potentially take on direct oversight of the spending. “There are no dedicated policy staff on homelessness in the city ,” said John Wickham, a legislative analyst official at the city who presented the staff report of options to the committee Wednesday.Costa Mesa allocated money last year to provide relief to families caught up in Trump's mass deportation campaign. Some are upset about how the money was spent.The L.A. Homeless Services Authority has been under fire for more than a year after audits found it failed to properly track its spending.The statement from Bass’ office encouraged the city council to develop a “thoughtful transition plan” before shifting funds away from LAHSA.The statement touted a new Homelessness Bureau the city created for the budget that started last July to focus on “oversight, accountability and results” to the city’s homelessness spending. But city officials noted at Wednesday’s committee meeting that no one has been hired yet at the bureau, nine months after the council approved its funding.. “We need more capacity to be able to manage this work at the city and to make sure that every dollar is working well. We just do. We're not staffed to be able to handle that right now.”Wednesday’s discussion didn’t start until just before 4 p.m., following two hours of discourse on other items at the meeting and lasted about 45 minutes. “It's getting very late,” Raman said around 3:45 p.m., before the committee began talking about the possible funding shift from LAHSA. It’s been two years since Councilmember Monica Rodriguez introduced the item that was up for discussion Wednesday, with the staff report of options delivered almost a year ago. She told councilmembers Wednesday that they’ve been wasting precious time and need to be decisive.”In the 316 days since this report was issued, we are finally here engaging in this conversation,” Rodriguez said. She recently criticized Raman, the committee’s chair, for not scheduling the discussion sooner. “ No longer can we afford indecision in making decisive actions around how we change this system. We must act. We must act now,” she said. ”We still have a broken and dysfunctional system without a singular entity directing our work around homelessness.” Raman has said she plans to hold one more discussion — expected to be March 18 — before the committee decides next steps. From there, it will be up to the full city council to decide. The committee’s recommendations are influential, as the panel’s five members are one-third of the full council and most of what it would take to form a deciding majority on the council.Black and Latino Angelenos are overrepresented in traffic stops used to investigate serious crimes The analysis found that Hispanic, Latino and Black people were overrepresented in data on pretextual stops compared to their share of the population.Officials also noted Wednesday that under their current approach, there’s no written agreement laying out what LAHSA and the city’s responsibilities are. They said one is in the works. “What I've seen in my short period is that … if we didn't ink it, nobody could think it and then they get away with not doing the work,” said Councilmember Heather Hutt. “I think we need to be more intentional about identifying roles.”LAHSA was created by the city and county in 1993 to oversee homeless services. It’s governed by a CEO who reports to a commission of 10 members. Half of the members are appointed by the mayor and the other half by each of the five county supervisors. Bass also serves on the commission, having appointed herself in fall 2023.While addressing the commission that oversees the organization last Friday, CEO Gita O’Neill said LAHSA was “in crisis. And I say this not as a criticism to any of our really hardworking staff. They've built what they were asked to build.”You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our connected community. We are free to tell the full truth, to hold power to account without fear or favor, and to follow facts wherever they lead . Our only loyalty is to our audiences and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen our community. Right now, LAist has lost $1.7M in annual funding due to Congress clawing back money already approved. The support we receive from readers like you will determine how fully our newsroom can continue informing, serving, and strengthening Southern California.
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