For supporters, the Los Angeles Department of Homeless Services was just beginning to make that progress.
Last summer, the lesser known but funded agency announced that homelessness has effectively leveled across Los Angeles County after years of growth. The city of Los Angeles results have further encouraged, with the number of “unsheltered” homeless people (people living on the streets) falling by more than 10%.
Lahasa’s top executives have pledged to show more progress against the humanitarian crisis in the coming months when the latest homeless numbers are officially released.
But instead of garnering praise, city and county homeless agents are on the verge of being pulled away from multiple directions and in danger of being pulled apart.
On Tuesday, the LA County Board of Supervisors is expected to vote for a plan to move more than $300 million in workers from Lahasa to the new county’s homeless department. Cash-bound city officials in Los Angeles have recently begun exploring similar steps.
Meanwhile, a federal judge is awaiting Rahasa. At last week’s hearing, US District Judge David O. Carter criticized Lahasa’s numbers for unreliability, attacked financial management and even denounced the location of the office.
“The office buildings in Lahasa are never exaggerated again so we will never enter again,” said Carter, who oversees the settlement agreement for the allocation of homeless services.
Va Lecia Adams Kellum, CEO of the Los Angeles Department of Homeless Services, will be attending a press conference in February to launch the 2025 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count.
(Jason Armand/Los Angeles Times)
Lahsa’s top executive Va Lecia Adams Kellum sent a letter to Carter last week writing about the improvements her agency is working on. Carter responded by accusing him of making a “meaningless” promise.
Adams Kellam, who took over Rahasa two years ago, said the day after the court hearing that her agency is working to improve data collection and upgrade a system to track available shelter beds. Lahasa moved from the streets to provisional housing and increased the number of homeless people who moved from the streets to provisional housing between 2023 and 24, she said.
“I got to work knowing that Rasa and the entire housing system needed significant change,” she said in an interview. “We have definitely made great strides in creating that change.”
Lahsa has been a public punch bag for many years, attracting criticism from city leaders, county supervisors and other civil servants who say their data collection is poor, weak surveillance and that their operations are kept secret.
In 2022, the Blue Ribbon Commission recommended that county officials create their own homeless agency and “rationalize” Lahasa’s obligations. The system of serving the county’s unpopulated population is exposed to “a great strain,” and too many institutions are confused about their role, the author writes.
With the majority of county supervisors supporting the withdrawal, some city halls have expressed new concerns about the looming split. Council members said they had little hearing from the county about whether services to the poor in the area would be disrupted or reduced.
“When they take money, they’re going to take the best people out of Rahasa,” Councillor Bob Blumenfield said. “I mean, they gulp the organization, take all the people who actually know what they’re doing and leave us with what remains.”
City Manager Matt Sabo, the city’s chief budget analyst, went further.
“The concern is that if an organization loses more than half its staff and nearly half its funds, it can survive,” he said. “Or will it collapse?”
Lahsa Sakeup supporters say they have worked to reach this moment for years. They point to the work of the Blue Ribbon Committee and the series of audits that are very important as reasons for taking decisive action.
One report prepared by the County Auditors last year concluded that LAX accounting procedures and inadequate written contracts prevented Lahsa from recovering the millions of dollars it provided to contractors as a progression in the 2017-2018 fiscal year. (Rahasa officials claim that no full repayment was paid until 2027.)
Another audit requested by Carter found that Lahsa did not have sufficient economic surveillance to provide the services offered by the contractor. This left agents vulnerable to waste and fraud, the audit said.
LA County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath is leading the push for new county agencies, but said the need to track homeless spending is even more urgent following the passage of a half-cent sales tax approved by voters in November to make housing and homeless services payments. She said direct surveillance by the county ensures that those funds are spent properly.
“What we’re proposing on Tuesday will not erase Lahasa,” said Horvath, who represents parts of Westside and San Fernando Valley. “It’s shrinking Rahasa and says the county is now empowering money entrusted by this voting measure. That’s the county’s money.”
“Many homeless people here don’t know what’s going on here because of fundraising,” said 32-year-old Colby Johnson, who left in front of a Skidrow tent in downtown Los Angeles about lack of economic surveillance over homeless spending.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
Supervisor Hilda Solis offered a similar perspective, saying that county agencies providing homeless services, such as the Ministry of Mental Health and the Ministry of Health Services, will operate more efficiently, provide more accountability and engage in more direct communication.
Shakeup advocates say Rahasa will still conduct an annual homeless count and oversee the Homelessness Management Information System. For homeless individuals, this is a database that tracks the services offered to homeless individuals. The emergency shelter will also continue to operate.
Rahasa was established in 1993 as a joint authority to serve both cities and counties as part of an effort to improve homelessness coordination. The agency has a 10-member board of directors divided equally between the city and the county.
The county provides 40% of Lahasa’s $875 million budget, with an additional 35% coming from the city, with most others from the state and federal governments.
The budget grew dramatically following the passage of Measure H, a 2017 county sales tax that generated hundreds of millions of dollars each year for Homeless outreach, housing navigation and other social services. The agency assumes hundreds of additional employees and currently manages more than 800 contracts.
Even with these funds, the county’s homeless population remains at around 75,000, following a five-year increase, according to Lahasa’s numbers last year.
“I believe they grew too quickly,” said LA County manager Kathryn Berger. “It was not much thought to grow quickly and hire a lot of staff members with a lot of contracts and grow it.”
Mayor Karen Bass, who was appointed in 2022 with a promise to fight the crisis, said he agreed that the homeless service system requires major changes in his office, not just Lahasa, but within his own offices, within Safe, a program he created to move Angeleno to temporary, permanent homes.
At the same time, Bass is the most well-known figure who opposes the creation of the county’s homeless sector, and says it will suspend success over the past two years.
According to Lahsa’s figures, by January 31st, Safe had moved around 3,900 people to temporary homes such as Hotels and Motels, more than two years before the program. Of that total, nearly 900 have ultimately become permanent homes, with another 1,400 leaving the program as they returned homelessness, went to prison or nearly dying.
“I want the county to consider the potential unintended consequences of doing this,” Bass said. “I think it’s going to stop the move forward to kick people out of the streets.”
Mayor Karen Bass will be attending a press conference and will open the 2025 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Services Department of 2025 in February.
(Jason Armand/Los Angeles Times)
Attorney Elizabeth Mitchell, who represents the LA Alliance for Human Rights, which sued city and county over handling the homeless crisis, has been little positive about Lahasa. However, she sounded skeptical of the county’s proposal and compared it to the Titanic’s deck chair movement.
She criticized the county’s Department of Mental Health, saying it only serves a small portion of those who need its services. And she expressed doubt about the successful breaking of barriers that county officials exist between their various departments.
“You take the money from one terrible organization and move it to another terrible organization,” said Mitchell, whose lawsuit and subsequent settlement agreements are being discussed in Carter’s court.
If the supervisor approves funding withdrawal Tuesday, county officials will begin forming a new division with budgets exceeding $1 billion. The new agency will absorb an estimated 76 workers from the county’s chief executive office, which oversees Pathway Home, an initiative similar to Inside Safe.
The new agency will hire approximately 245 employees from the county’s Department of Health Services, a program aimed at an estimated 384 DHS contract workers, in addition to a program aimed at homeless people with severe medical and behavioral conditions.
As many as 468 workers in Lahasa have also moved to the new county agency, with all relocations completed by July 1, 2026, according to the Horvath office.
The two are standing outside their tent during the Los Angeles Homeless Services Department 2025 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count in February.
(Jason Armand/Los Angeles Times)
County officials should discuss changes with International Union Local 721, which is a service employee representing three-quarters of Lahsa workers. And they still don’t provide a timeline for moving workers from some other institutions to new sectors.
County supervisor Holly Mitchell said the district is spreading from Koreatown to Carson, but is worried about the tough turnaround.
“Before we talk about the billion-dollar transfer, we need to make sure that this move is right and that everyone affected is… weighing it,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell recently expressed his dissatisfaction with the county’s own homelessness job. In some of her district, residents have been waiting for years for outreach workers from Pathway Home to carry out camp work, she said.
Nithya Raman, LA City Councilman who leads the Council’s Homelessness Committee, said he doesn’t understand how the new county agency will fix the issues plaguing the homeless service system.
“Until we can clarify these connections, I remain extremely skeptical that major changes will lead to improved lives for people on earth,” she said.
Councillor Monica Rodriguez, who has called on the city to establish its own homeless division, did not have that fear, saying LA “can’t leave it tied up by this sinking Titanic.”
County supervisor Berger said he would not change courses. She explained last week’s court hearing. There, Carter violated Rasa for financial management, as “the final nail of the co.”
“You can’t change my mind,” she said in an interview. “there is nothing.”
Times staff writer Doug Smith contributed to this report.
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