Mayor Bass Exits Embattled LAHSA as Feds Probe Homeless Spending

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is leaving the commission that oversees the city’s lead homeless agency— the same board she appointed herself to, then rarely attended.

A mayoral spokesperson told reporters Tuesday that Bass would step off the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Commission on Wednesday and name a replacement. The office did not say who would replace Bass.

As of Tuesday, LAHSA’s chief of staff said the agency had not been told she was leaving. Bass framed the exit as a matter of time. “I am going to be stepping down because I just—in terms of time and all,” she told KFI last week. She also said serving on the commission taught her that “the city needs to have its own system.” 

Spokesman Ilanna Morales said Bass’s “first-hand experience at LAHSA reinforced her understanding that our current system is broken” and that City Hall is drafting a “city-led homelessness response.”

LAist reviewed commission records and found Bass skipped 13 of 21 LAHSA meetings in a recent 12-month span—well above the four-absence threshold that can trigger removal under the agency’s bylaws. Since she put herself on the 10-member board in late 2023, she missed 25 of 47 meetings. Her three-year term expired June 30. She stayed on anyway and just blew off a congressional hearing focused on fraud within the system.

The House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency asked Bass to appear Sept. 15 for a session titled “Fixing Fraud and Failure in Federally Funded Homelessness Services.” The panel cited alleged waste, fraud, and abuse involving federal homelessness dollars and asked for years of communications among the Mayor’s Office, City Council, LAHSA, and the county. 

Bass’s attorney wrote Friday that “unfortunately” the mayor was “not available” that day because of conflicts in her travel schedule. The office said it would try to produce records and “looks forward to working” with the subcommittee. 

The timing of her exit, against the backdrop of a federal probe, is hard to ignore. Bass made street homelessness the centerpiece of her reelection campaign and tenure as LA’s mayor.

California Globe reporting has tracked what her leadership has produced.

In July, the Globe reported that street homelessness in the city jumped 7.9% in the 2026 point-in-time count, with overall homelessness up 3.4%—reversing two years of modest declines. The city still spends roughly $1 billion a year on various homelessness programs. Bass’s signature Inside Safe effort has moved more than 6,000 people into hotels and motels; LAHSA data showed 41 percent of those participants were back on the street by late May. Bass blamed federal and state cuts.

Inside Safe’s first year found only 255 permanent housing placements out of tens of thousands of homeless Angelenos despite tens of millions in spending, while interviews with people on the street described the program as temporary, restrictive, and easy to leave. The City Council later slashed Inside Safe funding during a roughly $1 billion city deficit.

While Los Angeles County pulled hundreds of millions from LAHSA, federal pressure has only grown.

In August, HUD Secretary Scott Turner putting California’s “homeless industrial complex” on notice after HUD suspended funding to LAHSA pending an inspector general review. Turner cited unverifiable housing sites, empty hotel rooms, conflict-of-interest problems, and weak financial controls.

Statewide, California has spent more than $37 billion on homelessness since 2019 under Gov. Gavin Newsom, approximately $200,000 per homeless person, yet is home to roughly a quarter to a third of the nation’s homeless population. Project Homekey sent $745 million into Los Angeles-area projects, many of which sat empty. A 2024 state auditor’s report found the state’s homelessness apparatus could not even keep a current statewide accounting of spending and outcomes. Enrollment files included names such as “Mickey Mouse” and “Super Woman.” A shelter claimed nearly 1,100 people in fewer than 300 beds. 

Bass ran for City Hall on a promise to get people off the street. What followed was a series of expensive failures, a 7.9% jump in street homelessness, a billion-dollar city homelessness budget, an agency so compromised that HUD suspended federal funding, and Congress demanding she explain alleged waste and fraud.

Leaving the commission and blowing off Congress does not close the books. Her record, the federal investigation, and the tents all remain.