LA officials approved millions to ‘High-Risk’ nonprofit. Its leader is charged with pocketing $10M

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.