Untethered from Reality
By Sam Quinones
L.A.’s primary homeless agency claims less than half of the county’s unhoused struggle with drug addiction and/or mental illness. Try 9 out of 10, former outreach workers say.
The agency that has shaped the approach to homelessness in Los Angeles for the past 33 years has fallen on hard times itself.
In recent weeks, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass resigned her seat on the board of the joint county-city Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA, describing it as broken and its approach in need of an overhaul. Prosecutors have indicted owners and employees of homeless-service providers that LAHSA has contracted with, alleging corruption in the spending of agency grant money.
L.A. County has pulled hundreds of millions of dollars from the agency, citing alleged mismanagement and lack of financial oversight. LAHSA this summer laid off almost half its staff of 600. Others left on their own.
