Please think twice before disbanding the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority

In the City and County of Los Angeles, various agencies provide different pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that make up the effort to end homelessness, including mental health services, outreach, permanent housing, and transitional housing.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority is the closest thing the city and county have to an overarching authority. It was established in 1993 as a joint agency between the city and county, with the goal of ending a fight between the two governments over who is responsible for homeless services. As homelessness has increased and funding for services has increased, so has its mission.

LAHSA is committed to conducting the Annual Point-in-Time Homeless Count, a massive three-day undertaking that brings together thousands of volunteers each January to survey nearly every census tract in Los Angeles County. In addition, it serves as the conduit for nearly all contracts for homeless services. . For example, if a city needs a service provider for a publicly funded permanent housing project, LAHSA consults with city officials about service goals, issues a request for proposals, selects a service provider, and writes a contract. I will.

Now, the county wants to overhaul LAHSA, stripping it of its vast contracting responsibilities and leaving it in charge of maintaining homeless counts, homeless databases and emergency shelter programs. The Board of Supervisors passed a motion several weeks ago ordering a feasibility report and other analysis before moving forward.

Does LAHSA need to be dismantled? Probably not.

Although Los Angeles is far from solving its homelessness problem, the number of homeless people in the city decreased for the first time since 2018 (down 2.2%), and the number of homeless people in the county remained flat. In contrast, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development just released numbers showing a staggering 18% increase in homelessness nationwide. Los Angeles is one of many cities that didn’t see an increase, which LAHSA Chief Executive Va. Lesia Adams Kellam said is a testament to the city and county working together.

There’s no question that LAHSA has grown over the years. LAHSA The amount of subsidies has also increased. The agency’s current budget is $875 million, of which approximately $717 million from federal, state, and local funds goes toward grants to service providers.

And it has always served as a punching bag for city and county elected officials frustrated by the ever-growing homeless numbers, largely because Los Angeles County has 509,000 affordable apartments. That’s what’s missing.

Like any large organization, LAHSA has its problems. A recent audit found that contractor payments were often late and not effectively monitored. Additionally, many providers who received cash advances totaling $50 million since fiscal year 2017 have yet to repay the money. Mr Adams Kellum said the funding was given to providers to strengthen their ability to fulfill contracts as demand for services increases.

The passage of Measure H added hundreds of millions of dollars to the system. The nonprofit was already shrinking in size and needed to quickly scale up to meet demand.

Providers have been told they don’t have to worry about repaying their advances until Measure H funding stops at the end of 2026, according to Adams Kellum and various long-standing and respected providers. Since then, Measure A has been passed, increasing the sales tax by half a cent. This will repeal and replace Measure H funding and is scheduled to take effect in January.

The regulator acknowledged that many of the issues identified in the audit occurred before Adams-Kellum took over as CEO in March 2023.

“I knew LAHSA was broken,” she says. “We wanted to come in and fix it.”

Adams Kellum, who spent 15 years as chief executive officer of St. Joseph Center, a West Side service provider, is responsible for relocating more than 200 homeless people from the Venice Boardwalk in 2021, primarily into motels and hotels. Successful. She was the architect of Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe program, which worked on a camp-to-home model that moved more than 3,500 homeless people from camps to transitional housing. She was appointed Director of LAHSA by the LAHSA Board of Directors.

Adams Kellum said the agency has made a number of changes since she joined the company. These include monthly monitoring of subsidy recipients and disbursements in a more timely manner, and, after a long-standing problem tracking available beds, providers need to know which beds are immediately available. This includes introducing a new shelter bed inventory tracker that lets you see if you have any. It is used by the city’s Inside Safe program and the county’s Pathway Homes program, both of which move people from camps to temporary housing. It will be rolled out system-wide in the new year, she said.

We agree that greater accountability is essential. But at a time when counties are poised to receive an estimated $1 billion a year in Measure A funding, counties must carefully consider whether to eliminate the agency and create another. Most of it won’t be funneled through LAHSA anyway.

“At the heart of this new urgency is not creating new bureaucracies, but getting people back off the streets,” Mayor Bass said in a statement.

Of course, LAHSA could benefit from some renovations. The agency itself provides some services, mostly outreach. Should we do that? Some nonprofit providers and supporters believe that government agencies should not conduct outreach. It should only be the role of nonprofit organizations whose primary mission is to provide a service. Adams Kellam said her agency is taking on the role of “first responder” when elected officials relay constituent concerns about people passed out on sidewalks.

Nonprofit providers want LAHSA to be a system-wide strategist. Potentially identify and correct inequities in services. Why is a provider sometimes paid one rate per bed by one agency and another rate by another agency, even though the services are the same? , LAHSA must ensure that services are standardized. So “outreach” and “case management” are the same, regardless of who provides it.

Before making a final decision on LAHSA’s fate, regulators will need to consider whether to create a new funding agency or reform the current funding agency.