LA County takes control of its homeless spending from LAHSA

Hundreds of millions in L.A. County homelessness tax dollars are now under new management.

On Wednesday, the county’s new homeless services department took over oversight of the money.

The change marks a major shift. For decades, county homeless services spending was overseen by the L.A. Homeless Services Authority, a joint city-county agency known as LAHSA.

The move was set in motion in April of last year, when every county supervisor but one voted to strip county funding from the L.A. Homeless Services Authority and have the county directly oversee it. The new county department, known as Homeless Services and Housing, or HSH, is led by Sarah Mahin. She previously oversaw the county’s well-received Housing for Health homelessness program.

The transition of funds follows a series of harsh audits and a judge’s rebuke of the job LAHSA officials had been doing for years at managing and tracking spending — including an inability to properly account for billions in taxpayer dollars. LAHSA was created by the city and county in 1993 and is overseen by a commission half appointed by the L.A. city mayor and half appointed by each of the five county supervisors.

In total, HSH now has a budget of $843 million in public funds this fiscal year.

Here are some takeaways from a public update shared at the L.A. County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, the eve of the switchover.

1) The new approach is faster and more accountable, says department’s leader

Tuesday’s update on the transition lasted about two hours. The back and forth was mostly positive, while getting heated on occasion.

“The old fragmented way of doing things wasn't working,” Mahin said on Tuesday. “HSH exists to make the county's response to homelessness clearer, faster, and more accountable to the people and the communities that we serve.”

She said the county’s response times to clear encampments with shelter and service offers to people have been shortened to an average of 45 days in the first quarter of this year.

That’s down a lot from what it used to be, said Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who was the lone vote last year against transferring management from LAHSA.

That’s “a  significant improvement compared to the six to nine month wait times my constituents experienced back when I first took office,” Mitchell said. “That is huge.”

Supervisor Janice Hahn said she’d like to see response times get even faster. Mahin said they’re working on it, including by clustering responses so that teams reach multiple smaller encampments in a similar area at the same time.

And in a contrast with LAHSA — which for years has been long overdue in paying service providers — Mahin said the new county department has been paying 97% of its bills on time. As of earlier this year, about 40% of unpaid LAHSA invoices were more than two months old.

 "While I understand that that makes us an ‘A’ student, we aim for a hundred percent,” Mahin said, adding that her team is working on process improvements to pay even more of the bills on time.

2) People are staying in permanent housing at high rates, per the county

Of people placed in permanent housing a year ago, 91% were still housed — and of those placed two years ago, 83% remain housed, according to data Mahin presented.

Public dashboards are expected to be posted in October with more detailed data on how various programs are performing under HSH, she said.

3) Many workers slated to be laid off by LAHSA are being hired by the county

Of the 210 county-funded staff at LAHSA, 184 have been hired at the county, 25 declined an offer or did not participate and one is considering a county job offer, according to a county presentation.

The rehires include experienced outreach workers who have established relationships working with unhoused people in the region, county officials said.

The outreach workers have been “working so hard, doing the kind of work that a lot of people won't do,” said Supervisor Janice Hahn. “I have seen them on the weekends, I've seen them [in] the evenings, I've seen them doing incredible work as we all lean in to trying to solve this…humanitarian crisis of homelessness.”

Of the 25 who weren’t on track to be hired and are being laid off at LAHSA, county supervisors pressed county staff to help them find other roles within the county.

4) Officials are concerned about federal funding halt

Mahin said she’s concerned that thousands of people could lose their housing if federal authorities follow through on their suspension of homelessness dollars to the region. More than 11,000 people are currently housed with those dollars, Mahin said.

"I am worried about how we're gonna be able to keep everyone in housing who's in housing today, as well as continue to make progress with bringing more people inside,” she added.

5) Supervisor says she wants the new county approach to succeed

Supervisor Lindsey Horvath praised Mahin for assembling a “very strong, very dedicated team” and a successful transition to the funding shift.

“And now, you're doing the work to change how the county operates an impactful, efficient, accountable homeless service response system,” she added, saying efforts are underway to move toward “an outcome-focused” system.

“All of us are behind you to make sure that we get this right and continue moving in the right direction.”

L.A. City Council members have been considering whether to pull out city homelessness funds from LAHSA and instead have the city itself, or the county, manage those dollars.

The city council’s homelessness committee recommended in April that an analysis be completed by Wednesday on which city programs make sense to shift away from LAHSA and instead be managed by the county, the city or another entity starting in the fiscal year that just began. But a follow-up vote last month by the council’s budget committee recommends a longer timeframe, calling for the analysis to be turned in by December of next year.

The timeline for any such report will be up to the full council, which has not yet voted on it.