Most of the time — almost all the time — we’d be the last to endorse Los Angeles County itself taking over important work currently being done by an at least quasi-independent outside agency that can in theory be more nimble and creative than any entity operating Downtown out of the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration.
But given the ongoing, sickening disaster that is the county’s response to decades of being home to the worst homelessness epidemic in the nation, it’s hard not to endorse a motion by two county supervisors to redirect almost all county funding from the obviously ludicrously inefficient L.A. Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) back to the county itself.
Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Kathryn Barger want to pull back the more than $300 million in taxpayer dollars sent to LAHSA each year and instead have the county oversee the spending.
The vote on the issue is set for April 1, and we hope at least one other supervisor joins the pair and that the county makes this big change. There’s simply nothing to lose here, because, literally, nothing could be worse than the way homelessness is addressed — or not addressed — in the county right now.
The city of Los Angeles also gives about $300 million to LAHSA each year, and an audit ordered by federal Judge David O. Carter concluded in a scathing report filled with what can only be called despair that the agency is so mismanaged that its spending and work is almost impossible to track. “Repetitive information gaps, coupled with a lack of accurate and complete data and documentation, posed significant obstacles to this assessment,” the auditors write. “Insufficient financial accountability led to an inability to trace substantial funds allocated to the City Programs.” When LAHSA outsources its work, the agency “failed to verify whether the services invoiced were provided,” auditors reported.
LAHSA failed to provide auditors documentation to verify the existence of about 2,300 housing sites the agency was responsible for, LAist reports: “Seventy percent of the contracts for those sites did not disclose any expenses over the prior year, the auditors added.”
“We cannot accept this dysfunction any longer,” Horvath said. We cannot.
