We’d wager, if we were betting people, that most Los Angeles County residents’ first inclination, after realizing that the quasi-governmental Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority is doing a terrible job, would not be: “Hey, let’s make it fully governmental by creating an entirely new county department to take on the daunting task!”
But that’s what the people already in government in L.A. County want to do.
As Staff Writer Steve Scauzillo reported last week: “The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 on Tuesday, Nov. 26, with Supervisor Holly Mitchell abstaining,” to look into taking on homelessness itself. “The board action asks its chief executive officer to produce a report about how to create the new department, which would likely be the largest county department.”
The report would ostensibly “look into streamlining” LAHSA, a joint-powers authority of the city and county, “by requiring the authority to transfer programs to the new county department.”
In what universe would creating a new government entity “streamline” anything at all?
Los Angeles County is fine, sort of, at running law enforcement — even with its problems, we don’t want a privatized Sheriff’s Department — and large public works projects like flood control.
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But creating a unioned-up new bureaucracy to tackle the devastating, decades-long tragedy that is homelessness in our 88 cities and many unincorporated areas would seem a sure-fire way to begin wasting the new extra half-cent sales tax that county voters just imposed on themselves last month, doubling the funds for homelessness services.
It’s true that the current LAHSA model is not working.
There are still more than 75,000 homeless people on county streets. That’s after a pitiful 0.27% decline in the homeless population compared to 2023. An audit released last month shows extremely serious accounting problems at the agency: it doesn’t track whether contracts are followed, and it gives taxpayer funds meant for something else entirely to providers who weren’t supposed to receive the money. Its new executive left in November after less than two weeks on the job.
It’s a disaster. But we have zero confidence that creating a giant new county department is the solution to its problems.