LA’s new top homelessness official draws support and concerns about prosecutor past

A longtime Los Angeles city prosecutor will serve as temporary head of the region’s homeless services agency, but critics argue she has a history of enforcing policies that “criminalize and displace” unhoused people.

Gita O’Neill was appointed last week by commissioners of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA. She will replace former chief executive Va Lecia Adams Kellum, who stepped down last week.

Supporters say O’Neill has the experience to steer the embattled agency, which is under scrutiny because of oversight and accounting issues. O’Neill served as the L.A. city attorney’s first director of homeless strategies.

Mayor Karen Bass, a member of the commission, called O’Neill’s “deep expertise and leadership” a good fit for LAHSA as it navigates the county government pulling its funding from the agency. The city has not yet decided whether it will do the same.

But some advocates for the unhoused say O’Neill’s appointment sends the wrong message.

Kristy Lovich, a community organizer and former LAHSA employee, told LAist that O’Neill’s experience with the city, helping to craft and enforce policies that penalize unhoused people for sleeping in cars and tents, is incompatible with LAHSA’s mission to serve that population.

“The signal sent by the city’s leading homeless service agency with O’Neill’s appointment is understood loud and clear: There is a war on the poor,” Lovich said.

O’Neill declined to be interviewed for this story.

O’Neill’s background

In a statement released by LAHSA, O’Neill said she was honored to step into the role of interim CEO.

“The challenge of homelessness in our community is immense, and the system is undergoing significant changes,” the statement read.

O’Neill started her tenure with the L.A. City Attorney’s Office 25 years ago, working in the neighborhood prosecutor program and eventually becoming its supervisor. She was assigned to the Police Department’s Pacific Division, which includes Venice Beach and LAX, to prosecute people accused of misdemeanor offenses, including so-called “quality-of-life” crimes, like loitering, drug possession, vandalism, blight, graffiti and public urination.

Authorities said O’Neill was responsible for working with police officers and community members to identify and charge problem offenders. She also oversaw the city’s Homeless Engagement and Response Team, a program that helps unhoused Angelenos clear legal citations.

From 2017 to 2023, she worked as the L.A. city attorney’s first director of homeless policies. In that role, O’Neill supported the city’s COVID-19 response and helped develop the city’s first citywide shelter system.

Some activists and community organizers argue thousands of lives were damaged by city policies O’Neill helped design and uphold.

“She built her career on prosecuting unhoused people for quality of life crimes and creating policies that harm unhoused people,” Venice-based activist Peggy Lee Kennedy told commissioners on Friday.

Between 2016 and 2022, more than 42% of all LAPD misdemeanor arrests were of unhoused people, according to a Human Rights Watch report. Unhoused Angelenos represent about 1% of the city’s overall population.

A worker with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority helps a person move a cart with their possessions.

(

Patrick T. Fallon

/

AFP via Getty Images

)

John Raphling, a former public defender now with Human Rights Watch, said LAHSA has been pressed into supporting criminalization over the years, mostly by City Council members responding to frustrated constituents. Now, the agency will be led by someone who coordinates closely with law enforcement.

“Appointing her is a signal from city and county officials that there is going to be more emphasis on the criminalization side,” he said.

According to LAHSA’s guiding principles, published in 2021, the agency opposes efforts to criminalize homelessness.

But critics say the agency violated those principles when it began assigning outreach workers to accompany police officers and sanitation workers on encampment sweeps in 2019.

Lovich worked as supervisor within LAHSA's access and engagement department until she was fired in July 2020 after she publicly criticized LAHSA for including policing in its outreach efforts. She said O’Neill’s appointment helps align the agency with law enforcement, not services and housing.

“This radically contradicts research-based best practices, not to mention LAHSA’s very own policies,” she told LAist.

Between 2016 and 2022, LAHSA included offers of shelter or housing in just 3% of all sweeps, according to the Human Rights Watch report.

A transitional period

O’Neill’s appointment comes at a difficult time for the homelessness agency.

A county audit and a March report found serious oversight and accounting issues at LAHSA. In April, L.A. County leaders voted to strip nearly $350 million from the agency’s $875 million budget next fiscal year and administer that homeless services funding within their own new county department.

The homeless services system is staring down a perfect storm of local, state and federal budget cuts and reductions. Bass and other local leaders are facing mounting state and federal pressure to cite or arrest unhoused Angelenos for public camping and other crimes.

Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that seeks to make cities and states who enforce laws against public camping, squatting and illicit drug use priorities for federal grant dollars from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.

Local leaders said they worry the order could result in the loss of hundreds of millions in federal dollars currently used on programs that prioritize housing and services over punishment.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an order encouraging more anti-camping enforcement last year, after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling expanded cities' abilities to ban tent camping in public.

The selection process

On Friday, LAHSA commissioners voted, 7-1, to appoint O’Neill. The sole no-vote on O’Neill’s appointment came from Tanisha Saunders, a property manager with the Venice Community Housing Corporation and one of Bass’ appointees on the commission.

She did not respond to questions from LAist about why she voted no.

Two weeks earlier, on July 11, the commissioners voted, 6-2, to confirm O’Neill as the top candidate. Two members were absent for that vote.

Commissioner Justin Szlasa was one of two LASHA commissioners who voted against O'Neill's selection on July 11.

(

Samanta Helou Hernandez

/

LAist

)

Justin Szlasa, a tech entrepreneur, was one of the no votes. When asked why he voted against O’Neil, Szlasa said in an email to LAist: “My priority was operational experience.”

He did not elaborate.

As interim CEO, O’Neill will report directly to the commission. O’Neill has acknowledged the need to provide more accountability for how public dollars are being spent on the homelessness crisis.

"Increasing trust in LAHSA hinges on our ongoing commitment to transparency, particularly in LAHSA’s core function of contracting,” O’Neill said, in a statement provided by LAHSA.

O’Neill will be expected to help transition funding to the county’s new homelessness department by next year, while maintaining LAHSA’s relationship with the city.

County leaders say she should be prepared to deliver more accountability than in the past.

“This appointment comes at a pivotal moment as L.A. County launches its new homelessness department, and I am confident that close coordination between our agencies will drive meaningful progress,” said Kathryn Barger, chair of the county Board of Supervisors.

Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said the agency and its new leader must embrace change.

“LAHSA must move beyond the scandal, distractions and stonewalling that have eroded public trust,” she said.

O’Neill’s 12-month contract will begin Aug. 26. Her base salary is $370,000 a year.