The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a plan to move hundreds of millions of dollars out of the region\u2019s homeless services agency on Tuesday, despite warnings from L.A. Mayor Karen Bass about creating a \u201cmassive disruption\u201d in the region\u2019s fight against homelessness.<\/p>\n
On a 4-0 vote, the supervisors signed off on the strategy to form a new county homelessness department with a budget that would almost immediately exceed $1 billion. By July 2026, the supervisors will move more than $300 million from Measure A, a half-percent sales tax, out of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA, and into the new county agency.<\/p>\n
More than 700 county workers will be transferred to the new agency by Jan. 1. Six months later, the new department will finish taking on hundreds more employees from LAHSA, a joint city-county agency that has been derided for years by City Council members, county supervisors, and other officials. The vote was a serious defeat for Bass, who had argued that the changes would result in the creation of yet another bureaucracy, while diverting energy away from efforts to move people indoors. With a huge chunk of its budget slated to disappear, LAHSA\u2019s long-term future is now in question.<\/p>\n
County supervisors said the changes will give them more direct oversight, and ultimately, greater accountability, over the funds generated by the Measure A half-percent sales tax, which went into effect on Tuesday. That measure, which provides funding for an array of housing and homelessness services, served as a replacement for Measure H, a quarter-percent sales tax approved in 2017.<\/p>\n
Hours before the meeting, Bass and City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who heads the council\u2019s homelessness committee, sent the supervisors a letter warning that the changes would ultimately deprive the city of \u201cessential resources.\u201d \u201cThis action would create a monumental disruption in the progress we are making and runs the serious risk of worsening our homelessness crisis, not ending it,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n
The new agency will be modeled after the county Department of Health Services\u2019 Housing for Health program, which Supervisor Lindsey Horvath called the \u201cthe most successful program across anything being done in the county to date.\u201d That initiative has a high success rate of moving people into permanent housing and keeping them housed. Housing for Health began in 2012 to house homeless patients who rotated through the county\u2019s public hospitals and has since expanded to more than 600 workers and an $875-million annual budget.<\/p>\n
The program includes homeless outreach teams, financial assistance for tenants at risk of eviction, and funds for roughly 3,200 interim housing beds. \u201cWe can do big things \u2014 things that work,\u201d Horvath said. \u201cHousing for Health works, and the Board of Supervisors created it.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Supervisor Holly Mitchell, whose South L.A. district stretches from Koreatown to Carson, warned her colleagues that they were moving too quickly \u2014 and without a clear strategy to ensure the replacement agency will perform better than LAHSA. Mitchell attempted to postpone the start date for the new agency, only to be outvoted. She abstained from voting on the proposal itself.<\/p>\n
The formation of a new county homelessness department and the significant transfer of funds from LAHSA mark a major shift in how Los Angeles County approaches homelessness. While the move is intended to increase oversight and accountability, critics fear it may disrupt progress and worsen the crisis. The success of this new agency will depend on its ability to effectively manage the funds and services, providing tangible solutions to the complex issue of homelessness.<\/p>\n
What is the main purpose of forming a new county homelessness department?<\/strong><\/p>\n How much money will be moved from LAHSA to the new agency?<\/strong><\/p>\n What is the reaction from city officials to this plan?<\/strong><\/p>\n What model will the new agency be based on?<\/strong><\/p>\n County Forms Homeless Agency, Taking Hundreds of Millions from LAHSA Introduction to the Plan The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a plan to move hundreds of millions of dollars out of the region\u2019s homeless services agency on Tuesday, despite warnings from L.A. Mayor Karen Bass about creating a \u201cmassive disruption\u201d in the region\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-real-estate"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/bda0c28\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/3600x1890+0+255\/resize\/1200x630!\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F10%2Fe7%2F6db91d0c4f9d87660b7d7934e518%2F1497999-me-weather-standalone-3-ajs.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11504"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11506,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11504\/revisions\/11506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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