Federal officials decry  LA's ‘drug-fueled homelessness crisis’ in visit to faith-based program

Two of the Trump Administration’s top cabinet officials visited a faith-based homelessness program in Los Angeles Tuesday to call for a shift in the region’s approach to the unhoused crisis.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner held a news conference at the Dream Center amid tensions with local officials.

The L.A. region’s lead homelessness agency, known as LAHSA, is currently suing the federal housing department after HUD suspended it from federal grant activity in June.

Turner said Tuesday the federal government wasn’t backing down on that.

“LAHSA does not receive another dollar until there’s accountability and transparency, and the right partners have come around for us to work with,” Turner said.

HUD has formally invited homeless service providers to apply directly for the federal homelessness funding, bypassing LAHSA entirely.

The federal government is pushing to partner more with faith-based homeless service providers like the Dream Center, which have not historically relied on much funding from the federal government, or from the state, county or city.

Turner and Kennedy toured the Echo Park facility, a 14-story converted hospital building, and spoke with several residents in transitional housing or recovery, LAist observed.

“I saw the success upstairs with their clients,” Kennedy said Tuesday. “They're doing it better than us, and we need to start recognizing it.”

Kennedy and Turner presented the suspension of LAHSA as part of the Trump Administration’s broader push against fraud in public benefits spending, mostly involving Medicare.

Funding battle

The Trump Administration suspended the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority for alleged mismanagement in June, pending a federal investigation.

That effectively cut off the agency that administers federal homelessness dollars from performing many of its roles. For example, HUD says that suspension means LAHSA cannot apply for up to $240 million in funding in a grant competition this year.

LAHSA is suing to overturn the suspension and to pause it in the meantime to prevent funding losses the agency said could cause 11,000 people to lose publicly-funded housing.

In a court hearing last Thursday, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter acknowledged legitimate concerns about LAHSA’s history of dysfunction and said he wanted to avoid catastrophic funding disruptions.

LAHSA says letting providers apply directly to HUD, without relying on LAHSA or some other agency to coordinate and prioritize the funding request would be unfair and disastrous.

Carter has not issued an injunction order, as of Tuesday evening.

HUD Secretary Scott Turner at the Dream Center Tuesday

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Aaron Schrank

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LAist

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Why the Dream Center? 

Dream Center in Echo Park is a large Pentecostal Christian nonprofit that does residential recovery and housing for families. The center, associated with the Assemblies of God denomination, has been operating for more than three decades.

Pastor Matthew Barnett is the co-founder and CEO. He said in the news conference that the facility in Echo Park provides recovery treatment and transitional housing to about 600 people.

“I feel that sadly, over the last few years, there's just been a prevailing overall theme in LA that people can't change,” Barnett said. “Let’s just get them out of sight. Let's put them in housing somewhere, but can they really change? Well, 70% of the people that live at the Dream Center are graduates of the recovery program,” Barnett claimed.

Unlike many local service providers, the Dream Center does not rely on taxpayer funding to serve unhoused Angelenos, but private donations.

“ Places like the Dream Center that have not asked for money, that have just done the work, it's made it very, very difficult for us to function in this city of expenses that are rising,” Barnett said.

Local officials respond

There were no local elected officials present at the event.

L.A. County voted last year to divert $300 million in county homelessness funds away from the city-county homelessness agency LAHSA and administer those dollars itself with a new county homelessness department.

After Tuesday’s news conference, L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said the county government has been working to fix the problem, while the federal government has not.

“Publicity stunts are no substitute for the hard work the County has already done to move away from the broken LAHSA system, establish new and accountable oversight of taxpayer dollars and change how we measure success from dollars spent to outcomes achieved,” Horvath said, in a statement.