L.A. County supervisors approve plan to study homeless services overhaul

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors gave qualified approval Tuesday to a proposal to study the creation of a new county department to manage billions of dollars in homeless services funds.

The 4-0 vote calls for the county chief executive to report in 60 days on creating the department that would consolidate the homeless-related programs of more than a dozen other departments and the hundreds of millions of dollars currently managed by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

“Change and structural change are hard,” said the motion’s author, board Chair Lindsey Horvath. “It is time to take the hard but necessary steps to double down on transparency and accountability on homelessness by creating a county department where we have direct oversight.”

Supervisor Holly Mitchell abstained, saying she does not think creating a new entity would resolve the problems that auditors and service providers have found with the system.

Recondal “Rick” Wesco, 60, has been homeless for 21 years and has been waiting for a Section 8 voucher.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

While voting for the study, Supervisor Janice Hahn expressed her own reservations and pressed the county’s chief executive to provide pros and cons in the report and not treat it like a “done deal.”

“For me, I’m going to want to know how this department is going to fix what is broken,” Hahn said. “How would this do a better job at fixing this crisis? I want to take the final vote with eyes wide open.”

In a back-and-forth with Hahn, Chief Executive Fesia Davenport resisted committing to making a policy recommendation in the report.

“I’m only being asked how we would do it,” she said. “My report will say yes, it is feasible, or no, it is not feasible.”

She added that there could be analysis of how to avoid repeating issues that came up in an audit of the homeless authority issued last week and in past audits.

The recent audit found that LAHSA, a city-county joint powers agency, failed to recover all but $2.5 million of $50.8 million in advances to service providers, failed to establish formal agreements on how and when advances should be repaid and could not provide an accurate list of all contracts and their execution dates.

In her motion, co-authored by Supervisor Kathryn Barger, Horvath cited the audit and an infusion of new homelessness funds to come from the voter-approved Measure A sales tax.

But she articulated a more expansive view of the need for a change, saying that since her 2022 election, she had put herself “on every decision-making table” to “understand and then to take action.”

LAHSA, created in 1993 as part of a settlement of a lawsuit between the city and county, had expanded with the homelessness crisis “without an intentional conversation about whether that makes sense,” she said.

Both Mitchell and Hahn questioned the conclusion that the audit uncovered inappropriate use of homelessness funds.

“I’m concerned it is leading to a mischaracterization of our service providers,” Mitchell said.

“It was about the business practices of LAHSA,” Hahn said. “It was not an indictment of the providers. I’m glad we did those cash advances. I think that was hugely important to get the cash out to the providers to help the people on the street.”

LAHSA Chief Executive Va Lecia Adams Kellum took a neutral stance on the motion but read a lengthy statement reviewing her efforts to address the issues in the audit — problems that she said she knew well as the head of the St. Joseph Center when she took the job in 2023.

“I think we could have written some of the audit report a couple of years ago,” she said. “These have been long-standing issues.”

The motion approved Tuesday requires the county chief executive to provide three reports: a feasibility report in 60 days, an analysis of which county and LAHSA programs would be absorbed by the new department in 90 days and a fiscal and staffing plan in 120 days.

Then a new vote would be required to proceed.