LA City Hall showdown over $1.3B homeless spending debate

“Get me off this merry-go-round from hell.”

That’s what Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez told the Housing and Homelessness Committee in a passionate opening speech Wednesday as Los Angeles leaders wrestled with a major question: should the city finally break away from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA)?

LA pours more than $1 billion a year into homelessness programs — and the crisis continues to spiral out of control.

“We still have a broken and dysfunctional system without a singular entity directing our work around homelessness,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez, who had spent seven years on the committee, said the city’s response has become a tangled web — with responsibilities split between the mayor’s office, council offices, the Housing Department and LAHSA.

“It’s the equivalent of a hostess taking everyone’s reservation at a restaurant with no tables available,” Rodriguez said.

After hours of debate, the committee postponed the decision until next week while staff prepares additional reports outlining possible paths forward.

Rodriguez introduced a motion calling for the city to examine consolidating its homelessness response under a single department back in 2023. That report took ten months to produce.

Los Angeles County has already started pulling away from LAHSA and created its own homelessness and housing department, forcing City Hall to confront whether it should remain tied to the regional agency.

Rodriguez is calling for a 30-day report outlining a five-year plan to build out a new Bureau of Homelessness within the Los Angeles Housing Department, including staffing, contract oversight and coordination with the county.

But the committee faces a political and operational dilemma. The panel is chaired by Councilwoman Nithya Raman, who has led the committee since taking office and is a mayoral candidate.

Raman said the issue is more complicated than simply cutting ties with LAHSA.

The agency still applies for federal homelessness funding, runs the annual homeless count and manages the region’s data systems tracking services.

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At the same time, Raman acknowledged the city spends more than $1 billion annually on homelessness programs while lacking a clear structure to measure results.

“We need to be able to say who is responsible,” Raman said.

City analysts outlined several paths forward: tighten the city’s partnership with LAHSA, contract directly with Los Angeles County, or build a new city-run system capable of managing homelessness programs itself.

None are simple.

Creating a new department could require hundreds of staff and years to build. Contracting with the county would require complex negotiations. Staying with LAHSA would require dramatically stronger oversight.

Mayor Karen Bass urged caution. In a statement Wednesday, Bass warned that cutting ties with LAHSA too quickly could destabilize services for vulnerable residents.

“Withdrawing from LAHSA too quickly, without a plan and without the capacity, will no doubt cause unintended consequences that will leave more Angelenos to die on our streets,” Bass said.

Bass also warned that the county’s move to create its own department has opened a $300 million gap in the regional homelessness system while state and federal funding shrink.

For Rodriguez, however, the bigger danger is delay. “We’ve wasted precious time,” she said.