The Brief

Brad Thomas has been up since 6 a.m. on a Sunday — farmers market first, then prep. By 2 p.m., he's back at the craftsman on 7th and Cherry, the home of his business partner, Clay Wood. The tablecloths go down. The gold cutlery comes out. By 6 p.m., the first of two seatings will fill the living room and front yard — 32 people across the night, all for a six-course dinner at $69 a head: hanger steak, crispy frites, a rotating dessert spread, much of it prepared over open flame in the backyard of the old craftsman.

This is Steak Freaks, and it is exactly the kind of food business that Long Beach just made legal.

Earlier this month, Long Beach became the 19th jurisdiction in California to authorize Micro-Enterprise Home Kitchen Operations — or MEHKOs — joining Riverside County and L.A. County and a growing statewide movement reshaping who can afford to start a food business.

What makes Long Beach different is that it's allowing renters to run these businesses from their homes. (Wood's house, for example, is a rental). In a city where 60% of residents rent and more than half of those renters are cost-burdened, these home kitchens aren't just a creative outlet. For many, they're an economic lifeline. And for those who find success, the program's own limits may push them toward the next step faster than they planned.

Guests dig into the hanger steak frites course during a Sunday dinner at Steak Freaks in Long Beach. The supper club seats 32 people across two seatings and has sold out every dinner since opening.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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Who's behind them

Prior to AB 626, the informal economy long existed in immigrant communities where neighbors sold plates, fed the block and cooked for whoever showed up. That changed in 2018 when the bill passed and gave it a legal pathway and a social media following.

A screenshot from CookConnect, the COOK Alliance's map of permitted MEHKO operators across California, shows the concentration of home kitchen businesses across Los Angeles and Riverside counties.

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CookConnect/COOK Alliance

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According to the COOK Alliance, the nonprofit at the forefront of MEHKO adoption statewide, 79% of operators are people of color and 70% are women. The home-based model removes barriers that have historically kept certain communities out of the food business — no need for a commercial kitchen, massive upfront capital, or to be in two places at once.

Geraldine Gonzales works the wok at Lomo Fuego, where lomo saltado is cooked over an open flame in the backyard.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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It’s worked for Heidi Randolph, who didn't set out to run a restaurant. A couple of years ago, she was selling plates of Peruvian food to soccer players at Lakewood parks on weekends.

I visited Lomo Fuego in March and found families pulling up chairs, her brother working the wok over open flame and her mother pitching in between shifts at her day job. It's started with a handwritten chalkboard and a MEHKO permit posted to a bulletin board that Randolph had to find herself after the city told her it was impossible. What's changed since then tells you everything about both the promise and the limits of the program.

The hanger steak frites at Steak Freaks are finished tableside with a kitchen torch. The six-course dinner runs $69 a head out of a rental home in Long Beach.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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Brad Thomas of Steak Freaks came to it differently. A pastry chef who spent years alongside teams trained by Thomas Keller, Nancy Silverton, and Josiah Citrin, he moved to Long Beach from Texas three years ago and started leaving anonymous pastry deliveries on doorsteps across the city — Lover Boy Provisions, with a flirty note attached.

That's how he met Clay Wood, who owns Clayonfirst pottery studio in the East Village Arts District. When Long Beach passed its MEHKO ordinance, Steak Freaks was born. Every dinner has sold out.

The Steak Freaks menu and a welcome note from collaborating poet Vic Hurtado of Vessel Poetics, set out before service at the Long Beach supper club.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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The landlord question

The council's vote this past April came down to one sticking point: should operators who rent be required to notify their landlord? Councilmember Tunua Thrash-Ntuk, who pushed the motion forward, believed that notification should be voluntary. The COOK Alliance's Roya Bagheri backed that position for a practical reason — even informal landlord approval can evaporate once paperwork gets involved.

Wood's situation says it plainly: his landlord is a former neighbor who follows Steak Freaks on Instagram. No formal conversation has happened. "I make pottery here," Wood said, "and the stuff I do for my pottery business is way crazier than a couple of steaks in the backyard."

The ceiling

When I revisited Lomo Fuego recently, a sign outside announced scaled-back hours — two days a week, down from four. After a neighbor complained, the county health inspector paid a visit and told Randolph she was approaching the annual revenue cap of $110,442 in gross annual sales (a figure adjusted every year for inflation by the California Department of Public Health).

To stay under the cap, she’s opening only on weekends for the near future.

Heidi Randolph with her mother Fritz and brother Luis at Lomo Fuego, the Peruvian restaurant she runs out of her Lakewood home. Randolph is now scouting restaurant locations and pursuing an additional permit to sell at farmers markets.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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Randolph took the health department visit as a sign to move forward. She's actively scouting restaurant locations, and her daughter left a job at a local restaurant to cook alongside her full-time.

Randolph didn't see any of this coming — from the park to the backyard to her daughter cooking beside her, her mother finally getting a day off. The program did exactly what it was supposed to do. She just needs a bigger kitchen now.

"I hope in the future," she said, "people can say — this still tastes like food from home."

Top L.A. homeless service executives approved at least $3.5 million in taxpayer contracts to a nonprofit even after their agency’s compliance team flagged the group as high-risk for failing to do its job, according to an LAist review of public records.

The contract approvals by the L.A. Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA, took place over several months in 2024, records show. The group’s leader, Alex Soofer, was charged with fraud earlier this year. Prosecutors allege he illegally pocketed at least $10 million in homelessness funds that flowed through LAHSA to his now-defunct nonprofit, Abundant Blessings, and his for-profit company, Abundant Blessings From Above.

Prosecutors allege he used a fake board and a shell construction company to siphon taxpayer money from LAHSA into buying a $7 million Westwood house, a $125,000 Range Rover, private school tuition, private jet travel and luxury resort stays. Soofer has pleaded not guilty. When LAist reached him by phone, he declined to comment for this story, citing the ongoing case. He agreed to pay LAHSA $1.25 million, without admitting wrongdoing.

LAHSA is a joint city-county agency, overseen by a 10-person governing commission that is half appointed by L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and half appointed by each of the five county supervisors. Bass appointed herself to the commission in fall 2023 after winning an election where she promised voters that solving homelessness would be her top priority. She is the only elected official on the commission.

A headshot of Alex Soofer posted by federal prosecutors on the social media site X.

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First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli via X

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The records show that in 2024, LAHSA's leadership at the time kept steering taxpayer dollars to Soofer's group well after major red flags emerged. The agency continued awarding new six- and seven-figure contracts even after it formally designated the nonprofit as delinquent and "High-Risk." They also show auditors found LAHSA broke federal law by taking eight months to alert federal funders after obtaining credible evidence of possible crimes.

LAist obtained the documents through public records requests this year that produced more than 7,000 pages of records.

Among what LAist found in the records:

• Nonprofits paid by LAHSA are required to update a central database after sheltering or housing people. Records show LAHSA continued to pay out contracts to Abundant Blessings for more than a year despite the group having “no enrolled participants to provide rental assistance to.”

• In fall 2023, LAHSA approved and paid about $117,000 to Abundant Blessings for alleged renovation expenses that were not allowed in its contracts, according to later findings by LAHSA. Invoices for those bills paid by LAHSA show the money was going through the group to Franklin Lincoln Construction. Franklin Lincoln Construction’s only associated person — per its business registration available online at the time — was the nonprofit’s leader, Soofer. Prosecutors allege Franklin Lincoln Construction’s bank account was a key vehicle Soofer used to siphon millions in homelessness dollars from LAHSA into his own pockets.

By spring 2024, a warning was flagged high-up at LAHSA, according to records and a senior official at the time.

Even after that, millions of dollars in new contracts continued to be awarded to the group.

The ‘High-Risk’ warning — and then approval of millions more dollars

The warning was direct. On May 6, 2024, LAHSA’s top two compliance officials issued a “delinquency notice” to Soofer declaring Abundant Blessings to be “High-Risk” and citing "significant concerns.”

The nonprofit, they wrote, had failed to follow key requirements on four contracts that were examined, including billing and getting paid the previous year despite not reporting that they had served anyone.

The delinquency concerns were flagged up the chain at the time to Janine Trejo, LAHSA’s chief financial officer who oversaw compliance and contracting, according to Amy Williams, who co-authored the delinquency notice as LAHSA’s director of compliance at the time.

Janine Trejo, LAHSA's former chief financial officer, speaks at a LAHSA Commission meeting on April 25, 2025.

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Samanta Helou Hernandez

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LAist

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A few weeks later, Trejo was CC’ed on a staff recommendation from the administration of LAHSA’s then-CEO Va Lecia Adams Kellum for LAHSA’s governing commission to authorize more than $2 million in contract renewals to Abundant Blessings, using county funds, for the next fiscal year as part of a larger set of approvals. The recommendation did not note the known concerns.

The contract renewals came up for a vote at the LAHSA Commission meeting on May 24, 2024 — a couple of weeks after the “High-Risk” letter was sent to Soofer. Trejo was among the executives who spoke to commissioners when it was up for approval.

A commissioner asked how LAHSA is providing oversight to ensure people received the services that the agency was paying for.

“ What we've heard, in at least one case, is that people aren't getting the services that on paper they are told — and we are told — they are supposed to be getting,” said county supervisor and then-LAHSA Commissioner Lindsey Horvath. She was referring to complaints about a different nonprofit where the husband of the agency’s CEO at the time, Adams Kellum, worked as an executive.

A LAHSA staffer, sitting next to Trejo, responded by reassuring commissioners that LAHSA monitors how providers are performing.

The concerns about Abundant Blessings were not noted by Trejo or anyone else during the discussion, according to the meeting video.

In response to the staff’s recommendation, the commissioners voted to authorize Adams Kellum to finalize the $2.6 million in contract renewals to Abundant Blessings.

Va Lecia Adams Kellum, former CEO of LAHSA, speaks during a press conference on Monday, July 14, 2025, in Los Angeles.

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Luke Johnson/Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag

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Los Angeles Times

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Asked about how LAHSA handled red flags surrounding Soofer, Williams said the delinquency concerns were not treated by her superiors “with the gravitas that it needed.”

Williams added that Trejo “was not very well-seasoned” when Adams Kellum placed her in LAHSA’s top finance job. Trejo “got thrust into this position as the CFO” with much more responsibility than her previous position, Williams added.

Trejo and Adams Kellum have not responded to requests for comment. Spokespeople for LAHSA have not answered whether Adams Kellum or LAHSA’s governing commissioners were told at the time of the delinquency concerns with Abundant Blessings, before they acted to award the group millions in additional contracts. Bass’ office told LAist she and her staff were not aware at the time.

Williams also said it was unclear why Abundant Blessings got new work out of the roughly 100 service providers LAHSA was working with at the time. Abundant Blessings was “never seen as a stellar agency, like the top agencies that really get the work done,” she said.

“[Soofer] got by us with a few things, and I think he got really emboldened and started trying to do even more,” she added.

An LAist review of LAHSA records shows Trejo, LAHSA’s chief financial officer at the time, did not describe herself as having the education or experience listed in LAHSA’s qualifications for the job. The job description called for a “bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, management, with an MBA and/or CPA” and minimum class units in accounting. Trejo’s resume and cover letter list no such education, saying she has a bachelor’s in cultural anthropology.

Trejo remained LAHSA’s chief financial officer until she left the agency late last month after being on leave for much of this year. LAHSA spokespeople declined to comment on why she was on leave. LAHSA human resources records, obtained by LAist, through a public records request, show multiple employees, including at least one subordinate, complained about how Trejo was treating them. It’s not clear whether the complaints or investigation are related to Trejo’s leave.

An outside review commissioned by LAHSA, conducted this spring and dated this month, found its finance and payment processes continued to be “fragmented” and rife with “breakdowns” that have made it time-consuming for LAHSA itself to even know how much it’s paid individual vendors.

Trejo was selected as CFO, where she oversaw LAHSA’s compliance team, by Adams Kellum. She was promoted after Adams Kellum fired LAHSA’s prior CFO, whom LAHSA later agreed to pay $450,000 to settle claims that included allegations Adams Kellum was hiring under-qualified friends into high level roles.

Bass’ office also directed new funds after ‘High-Risk’ letter

The May 2024 LAHSA Commission vote wasn’t the only granting of new dollars to the group after the letter raised red flags.

On June 7, 2024 — a month after the “High-Risk” letter — the mayor’s office instructed the city to fund a new LAHSA contract with Abundant Blessings for Bass’ main homelessness program, Inside Safe — a program Adams Kellum had designed at the mayor’s request.

Adams Kellum’s signature finalized that contract later in June for about $250,000, for about a month and a half of security, food and other services at two motels in the city.

A spokesperson for Bass said the mayor and her office were “absolutely not” aware of any potential misconduct by Abundant Blessings at the time they directed the funding. The letter directing the funding was signed by Bass’ chief homelessness official at the time, Lourdes Castro Ramirez. Castro Ramirez told LAist she was “not aware of any concerns” regarding Abundant Blessings at the time.

Asked if LAHSA leadership should have told the mayor’s staff, Bass’ office replied: “Yes. And to reiterate, the Mayor does not tolerate fraud or corruption in any form.”

It’s unclear what expectations, if any, the mayor had previously set for Adams Kellum or LAHSA to notify her office about known concerns with vendors being considered for additional funding. Bass’ office has not responded to a follow-up question about this.

Bass’ office chose Abundant Blessings from a list of previously-approved, competitively-chosen service providers “that LAHSA had indicated had the capacity,” said Ahmad Chapman, a spokesperson for the current LAHSA administration headed by Interim CEO Gita O’Neill.

As for why LAHSA told the mayor’s office that Abundant Blessings had capacity to take on more Inside Safe sites — despite the red flags — Chapman said in a statement: “At the time, LAHSA's structure hindered internal communications regarding Abundant Blessings, leading to an errant contract recommendation.”

“LAHSA has since undergone several structural changes,” said the written response, issued last month. Those changes, according to the statement, include “consolidating key departments and implementing protocols to ensure any high-risk provider is flagged agency-wide and to key funders to reduce the threat to public funds.”

The taxpayer money Bass’ office directed in June 2024 was supposed to help people living at two motels in El Sereno and Boyle Heights, records show. The contract required Abundant Blessings to provide 24/7 security, twice-daily welfare checks and three daily meals, among other services.

That month, the nonprofit fed instant ramen to people staying at the two Inside Safe motels, a violation of the contract, according to the federal criminal complaint against Soofer. During that same month, prosecutors say he “and his family spent more than $100,000 on what appears to be personal expenses, including more than $47,000 in luxury home purchases,” $15,000 each at luxury retailers Hermes and Chanel and $4,500 “for a four-night stay at the Wynn Las Vegas.”

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A screenshot of the federal criminal complaint showing retail website photos of the $1,400 sandals they allege Alex Soofer and his wife bought with tax dollars.

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Criminal complaint from the U.S. Attorney's office

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Food quality at Inside Safe sites was previously flagged as a concern by advocates. A little over a year earlier, a group called Inside Starving held a news conference urging the mayor to address what they alleged was inadequate food.

In July 2025, just over a year after directing further funds to Abundant Blessings, Adams Kellum stepped down as LAHSA CEO to public praise from Bass, who celebrated Adams Kellum’s leadership. Adams Kellum announced her plans to resign several months earlier, in the wake of county leaders deciding to pull out all county service dollars from LAHSA because of oversight concerns.

“Thank you so much Mayor Bass! It has been the honor of my life to serve under your leadership,” Adams Kellum wrote to Bass in April 2025, days after announcing her plans to step down.

Yet more red flags, and then more contracts

More red flags emerged the month after Bass’ office directed the Inside Safe contract.

In mid-July 2024, L.A. City Controller Kenneth Mejia’s office notified LAHSA it was launching a fraud investigation into Abundant Blessings, after a site visit found the group was serving almost entirely instant ramen noodles at the two Inside Safe motels.

LAHSA also received a demand that month from an apartment complex owner who said Abundant Blessings had failed to pay them about half a year of rent for 10 people, according to later written findings by LAHSA, which say the allegations were verified.

And on July 30, 2024, LAHSA emailed Abundant Blessings a report laying out further "significant" concerns from their compliance review looking back well over a year. Those concerns included a “misallocation” of about $700,000. And for the entire 2023 calendar year on a contract, the report says, "there were no enrolled participants to provide financial assistance to, but throughout that period, [Abundant Blessings] continued to bill for costs."

Adams Kellum was CC’ed on the email flagging those concerns.

New commitments of public money kept getting approved.

In the first half of August 2024, LAHSA finalized five contracts and renewals with Abundant Blessings, totaling more than $3 million, according to a list LAist obtained from LAHSA through a public records request. Adams Kellum’s signature executed the four agreements that have been disclosed so far by LAHSA. LAist has an outstanding request for the fifth.

Among the contract finalizations was one on Aug. 15, 2024, that increased the Inside Safe contract with Abundant Blessings by about $770,000, to extend it for three months. The contract records show Adams Kellum’s signature finalizing it and Trejo’s signature under the words “Approved Generally by.”

Failure to promptly report credible evidence of possible crimes, per auditors

By Aug. 23, 2024, LAHSA had obtained credible evidence of possible federal crimes, auditors later found. Federal law requires LAHSA to “promptly” report that to its funders at the federal housing agency HUD and its watchdog arm, the HUD Office of Inspector General (OIG), auditors wrote. But LAHSA failed to do so, the audit found.

The disclosure was “not made until approximately eight months after LAHSA first obtained credible evidence of the suspected violations,” the audit states. The disclosure was made on April 25, 2025, per the audit.

"LAHSA did not have formal policies and procedures in place to guide the timing and process for making [the] mandatory disclosures” required by law, the auditors wrote.

LAHSA’s management wrote that they did not disagree with the findings.

In October 2024, LAHSA canceled its contracts with Abundant Blessings. It was well over a year after the group started billing on a contract despite having no one enrolled to be served, according to LAHSA’s findings. LAHSA made $1.5 million in direct payments to the group after sending the “High-Risk” delinquency letter to Soofer. About $771,000 of that was paid after the date auditors say LAHSA obtained credible evidence of possible crimes, records show.

LAHSA also approved an additional $447,000 in payments to Soofer’s for-profit company — Abundant Blessings From Above — as a subcontractor from late August 2024 to January 2025, all after the date auditors say LAHSA obtained credible evidence of possible crimes, according to LAHSA records.

Altogether, LAHSA paid $5 million to Soofer’s nonprofit through direct contracts starting in 2023, according to LAHSA data and prosecutors. His for-profit company received more than $17 million in additional LAHSA funds as a subcontractor of another nonprofit, Special Service for Groups, starting years earlier in 2018, according to prosecutors.

LAHSA took much longer to review compliance than other agencies

Other agencies say they review homeless service providers’ performance much more frequently.

Denver officials check homeless service providers’ performance data daily — including occupancy of shelter beds, according to information shared at an L.A. summit last month.

L.A. County’s homeless services director, Sarah Mahin, said that on a daily basis, the county sends to their providers a data snapshot that flags where performance metrics are not being met. Starting last month, her county department has taken over the hundreds of millions of dollars the county had been sending to LAHSA each year. City dollars have remained at LAHSA under city budgets proposed by Bass and approved by the City Council.

This June, federal officials announced they were suspending all federal dollars to LAHSA, citing Abundant Blessings as one of a number of failings by the agency. A judge recently paused the federal suspension, saying LAHSA “may be dysfunctional," but that federal officials had “abruptly” pulled the rug from under providers who serve thousands of people.

In response to the federal suspension, Bass’ office said she had previously directed the city to evaluate how to move away from LAHSA.

“Mayor Bass, too, has grave concerns about LAHSA and zero tolerance for mismanagement and negligence, which is why she previously directed the City to evaluate how to move away from the agency,” the mayor’s office said in its June 11 statement reacting to the federal suspension.

A spokesperson for Bass told LAist the mayor’s directive was to the city’s housing department and other city departments, “to develop options to transition away from LAHSA.”

LAist followed up with the housing department’s press office for more information. A spokesperson for the housing department declined to confirm whether the mayor gave such a directive at all. And in response to a public records request, the department told LAist it has no record of such a directive.

Bass’ office hasn’t responded to follow-up requests for comment on whether the mayor did in fact make the directive her office had claimed.

A settlement deal

In response to a demand from LAHSA, records show Soofer and LAHSA agreed last November that he and his nonprofit would pay the agency $1.25 million,in exchange for LAHSA giving up the ability to seek more money from him or Abundant Blessings. The agreement says both Soofer and LAHSA “deny any fault.”

The agreement includes a non-disparagement clause that says LAHSA shall not “make any statements—oral, written, or electronic—that disparage” Soofer or Abundant Blessings, and vice versa.

The signature line for O’Neill — LAHSA’s interim CEO — does not show a signature, while the electronic signature history says she signed it.

“LAHSA’s agreement with Abundant Blessings assured that $1.2 million in documented disallowed costs were repaid,” said Chapman, the LAHSA spokesperson. “LAHSA remains committed to assisting in any ongoing law enforcement investigations.”

Reactions from other elected officials

Several elected officials said LAist’s findings about LAHSA’s handling of Abundant Blessings show the need for a major overhaul of oversight.

“LAHSA needs deep reform of its compliance and finance functions. Its leadership must make that reform a priority — and deliver it,” said county Supervisor Kathryn Barger.

“I have no idea why LAHSA continued sending funds to this organization months after staff raised these serious red flags,” said Supervisor Janice Hahn.

“It sounds like the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing,” she added. “It is decisions like this that have undermined the public’s trust in LAHSA and why my colleagues and I made the decision to pull the County’s funding.”

Citing concerns about oversight failings at LAHSA, county supervisors decided in spring 2025 to pull the county’s homeless service dollars out of LAHSA and instead have the county oversee it directly.

Supervisor Holly Mitchell told LAist that the Abundant Blessings case “serves as an example of the need for LAHSA and all entities involved to continue strengthening oversight in its contracting.”

L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman chaired the council’s homelessness committee for the last several years, where she supported continued city funding of LAHSA. She shifted this spring to calling for the city to transition out of LAHSA after she started running for mayor against Bass, her former ally.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, left, talks with L.A. Mayor Karen Bass at Hazeltine Park in Sherman Oaks in 2024.

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Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag

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Los Angeles Times

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Raman said LAist’s findings underscore why it’s important for the city to also transition away from LAHSA.

“Public trust depends on rigorous oversight, timely disclosure of problems, and clear accountability when taxpayer dollars are at risk, and these allegations underscore why the status quo at LAHSA was unsustainable,” Raman said.

“We need systems that surface problems immediately, protect public funds, and ensure that organizations failing to meet their obligations are no longer entrusted with scarce homelessness resources.”

A pattern of broader problems at LAHSA

In addition to the review finalized this month that found ongoing problems with LAHSA’s finance and payment processes, an outside audit found that LAHSA had a “significant” problem with inaccurate financial statements for the fiscal year ending June 2025.

Last month, LAist reported that LAHSA had gone years without completing any internal audits, which are widely considered essential for protecting taxpayer dollars, since they flag risky practices.

It’s a problem that was flagged years ago by a 2024 county audit, which faulted LAHSA for failing to complete internal audits. That raises the risk of fraud, the county auditors wrote.

Additional reviews in 2023 and 2025 found that LAHSA had a broader problem of not ensuring service providers logged their services into the same central database where Abundant Blessings wasn’t entering anyone as being served under certain contracts. The 2025 review, overseen by a federal judge, found that the broader reporting problem “may have stemmed from insufficient communication and lack of clarity surrounding reporting requirements and deadlines.”

What’s next?

Another ongoing audit, expected to wrap in the coming weeks, is reviewing whether top LAHSA officials followed proper procedures when signing and delegating contracts. It began after LAist reported that Adams Kellum’s signature finalized a $2.1 million contract with her husband’s employer.

That reporting prompted the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission to investigate whether Adams Kellum violated conflict-of-interest laws. Her signature as LAHSA’s CEO at the time also finalized a contract with a nonprofit she had led until two months before the signature. State law bars officials from involvement in contracting with entities that recently paid them $500 or more, or their spouses $1,000 or more.

This week, Stephanie Graves — a Bass appointee who now chairs the LAHSA Commission — proposed removing the commission’s audit committee chair, Justin Szlasa, who has pushed for LAHSA to improve its practices and complete its internal audits. Szlasa — an appointee of county Supervisor Barger — would be replaced by a Bass appointee. No explanation for replacing Szlasa is provided in the written recommendation, which is up for approval by the commission on Friday.

Graves has not answered a voicemail and text message from LAist asking why she wants to remove Szlasa. She responded with a text saying, “It’s the chair prerogative.”

As for Soofer, early this year, federal and county prosecutors announced the criminal charges against him. The amount he’s accused of diverting is enough to house about 200 families for two years under a city-funded rental subsidy program through LAHSA, which cost about $24,000 per year per household.

Soofer is currently out on bail. His travel has been restricted by the court, and he has obtained the court’s permission to sell a building that LAHSA found he wrongfully charged taxpayers to renovate.

His trial is scheduled to start Nov. 10.

Federal lawmakers representing the Los Angeles region warned that the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games could be a congestion nightmare if the federal government doesn’t fulfill a request for billions of dollars for transportation projects.

Rep. Laura Friedman said Wednesday the lack of financial assistance could increase traffic, result in fewer buses and worsen public transit reliability during the Games.

“That will be a terrible result, not just for Los Angeles, but for the whole nation,” Friedman said.

Friedman convened a panel in West Hollywood, where she and some of her Democratic colleagues in Congress questioned regional transportation officials about L.A.'s readiness to seamlessly move the millions of visitors expected for the fast-approaching Games.

What emerged was agreement among the lawmakers that time is running out to secure funds for transit plans from a so-far uncooperative federal government.

“ Our local partners can't do this alone,” said Rep. Judy Chu. “Hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games is an opportunity for the entire country, and Los Angeles should have a strong federal partner help us prepare.”

A panel of five U.S. Congressmembers asked local transportation officials about the region's readiness for the 2028 Games.

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The office of U.S. Rep. Laura Friedman

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What’s the federal funding ask?

L.A. Metro has asked the federal government for a total of $2 billion. Half of that money would be used to temporarily acquire, operate and store nearly 1,750 additional buses — the centerpiece of the region’s Olympics transportation plan.

The remainder of the federal funding ask, if granted, would be used for pedestrian improvements and designing a network of roads for Games vehicles, among other uses.

What’s the status of the ask?

L.A. Metro’s Board and California Democrats have repeatedly appealed to the federal government to provide dollars for the region’s "transit-first" Games, including trying to get the Trump administration to add the money to its annual budget request.

The budget request did not include any mention of L.A. Metro.

This summer, lawmakers included $875 million for Olympics-related transportation needs in a spending bill that still needs to move through the appropriations process.

“ We shouldn't have to wait this dang long begging for this money that we deserve,” said Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, who told LAist she has been cajoling her Republican colleagues to try to get some of the funds.

Jennifer Vides, the chief customer experience officer for Metro, said Wednesday that the agency is still working out how it would use the $875 million if it's approved, but the temporary Olympics bus system was the top priority.

Metro officials said at a January Metro Board meeting that the agency would need a chunk of funding available by this summer to find and prepare the real estate where those additional buses would be staged. When asked if Metro had a new timeline, Vides said the agency is “continuing to work with its partners to generate the funding that we need.”

LAist has reached out to the White House for comment.

Big questions remain

In addition to questions over the feasibility of Metro’s bus plan, the lawmakers questioned how security perimeters would impact access to the scattered Olympic venues in Southern California.

Rep. Ted Lieu said that if other forms of transportation get fans closer to the venues than public transit, then there wouldn’t be an incentive to take Metro buses.

“Then you're just gonna have more traffic," Lieu said.

Chief Bill Scott, who oversees Metro’s Department of Public Safety, said the goal is to limit the walking time from transit drop-off locations to the venues to 10 to 15 minutes.

The panel raised another major issue still to be determined: where rideshare companies and automated vehicles will be permitted to pick up and drop off fans during the summer Games.

Laura Rubio-Cornejo, the general manager of L.A. City’s Department of Transportation, said the city designated certain areas for rideshare drivers during the World Cup.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

There are still more than two months to go until the Nov. 3 election, and Inglewood’s stadiums and a billboard company have already dumped more than $3.4 million into ballot measure campaigns.

One campaign committee burned through more than $2.1 million of stadium money in the first six months of the year, according to campaign filings. A rival billboard-backed committee poured almost $1.3 million into its own campaign.

Inglewood locals are set to vote in the Nov. 3 election on a trio of ballot measures that would hike taxes on large event tickets, restrict commercial ads on public roads and provide nearly $400 million in property tax bonds to the school system. 

The stadium tax and commercial ad initiatives are framed around the needs of locals, and each could have real effects on city revenue streams and how Inglewood engages with stadium visitors.

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But campaign filings released by the city in response to a public records request show nearly all the funds for two competing campaigns have come from Hollywood Park, the Kia Forum and billboard company WOW Media. 

The expensive battle between WOW and the stadiums, who have video billboards of their own, essentially boils down to an advertising turf war, according to Ron Camhi, an attorney who works in commercial real estate and digital advertising.

“This is really a fight over scarce assets and access to millions of consumers attending some of the highest profile sports and entertainment events in the world,” Camhi said. 

Neither campaign responded to an interview request.

The ballot measures are partly the overflow of a year-long court fight over WOW’s growing fleet of video billboards and twisting kiosks. WOW scored a big win over the stadiums in that case earlier this summer.

Here’s a breakdown of the more than $3.4 million spent

Hollywood Park and the Kia Forum funded nearly all of a campaign committee called Neighbors for Beautiful Inglewood. Kevani, Inc., which operates a large billboard outside the Kia Forum, also pitched in $10,000 into the committee, documents say. 

The committee spent more than $2.1 million campaigning for the advertising measure in the first six months of the year, according to campaign finance documents.

The committee had more than $1.7 million left in its account as of June 30, according to the filings.

Check out the full campaign finance filing below.

460 – Neighbors for Beautiful Inglewood (Amendment) 4.26 – 6.26 (1)Download
WOW Media’s campaign committee, Inglewood Residents for Stadium Accountability, spent more than $1.3 million in the same six-month period to fight the advertising restrictions and promote the stadium tax increase.

At the end of June, the WOW-funded committee had just over $400,000 left in its account, according to filing documents. 

Check out the full campaign finance filing below.

460 – Inglewood Residents for Stadium Accountability 4.26-6.26 (1)Download

Elected leaders in Los Angeles have decided that more deliberation is needed before they agree to a plan that would pause the city’s homeless encampment sweeps during environmental disasters.

The L.A. City Council was scheduled to take up a proposal Wednesday that would have directed the city’s Sanitation Bureau to suspend encampment sweeps in neighborhoods affected by environmental emergencies declared by city or state officials.

But at the start of the meeting, Councilmember Ysabel Jurado introduced an amendment to the proposal. Instead of ordering the bureau to make the change, her new language instructed the bureau to “report back on options” for suspending sweeps during emergencies.

All 15 councilmembers voted to approve that amended proposal, which sets no due date for the bureau’s report.

How the proposal came about

Jurado represents Boyle Heights, the neighborhood that was recently choked with noxious smoke and rotting food odor as a result of the Lineage cold storage warehouse fire. She introduced the proposal to suspend encampments sweeps during emergencies shortly after that fire broke out in June.

In her original motion, Jurado wrote that the city’s regular encampment sweeps “serve important sanitation and public health purposes,” but can harm unhoused people who are trying to take whatever refuge they can from nearby hazards.

“During periods of extreme heat, poor air quality, smoke, hazardous debris or other environmental emergencies, requiring unsheltered residents to remain outdoors while relocating their belongings may increase their exposure to dangerous conditions,” Jurado wrote.

The City Council could still implement this change after receiving the report they’ve now requested from the Sanitation Bureau, though the timing remains unclear.

If the changes are implemented, they could affect thousands of people across the city. According to the region’s latest homeless count, the city of L.A. has more than 45,000 people experiencing homelessness on any given night. About 60% of them are unsheltered.

Sweeps can harm physical and mental health

The city’s encampment sweeps typically require unhoused people to dismantle their tents or makeshift shelters, pack up their belongings and relocate so that sanitation crews can clean sidewalks and other public areas.

Service providers have said sweeps can cause them to lose touch with the unhoused people they’re trying to help. Public health researchers have found that sweeps, which happen at least monthly for about a third of L.A.’s unhoused residents, can worsen unhoused people’s physical and mental health.

A study published earlier this year found that sweeps in L.A. County were associated with poorer physical health and worse psychological distress, as reported by hundreds of surveyed unhoused Angelenos.

Randall Kuhn, a professor of community health sciences at UCLA who co-authored the study, said the city should ideally give unhoused people a chance to enter safe indoor shelters during emergencies. Barring that, he said, the city should at least allow people to stay put.

“The idea that you now want to kick them out of that spot where they've managed to stay safe, to stay alive, and tell them that they now need to start walking around, carrying all their stuff in 108-degree weather, it's not only harmful and unethical, but it's inviting legal action,” Kuhn said.

As originally written, Jurado’s proposal would have instructed the Sanitation Bureau to post notices in areas affected by officially declared emergencies, letting unhoused people know that scheduled cleanups would not happen.

Officials would also have been required to notify residents about suspended sweeps through postings at cooling centers and shelters, on social media and through other public channels.