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Government Corruption

House DOGE panel calls Mayor Bass to DC over alleged $1B homeless funds scandal

2026-09-04

[NYPost] The US House is calling on Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass to testify over alleged “waste, fraud and abuse” involving more than $1 billion in federal homelessness funding funneled through the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), according to a letter obtained by The California Post.

The Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, led by Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), summoned Bass to a Sept. 15 public hearing titled “Fixing Fraud and Failure in Federally Funded Homelessness Services.”

The hearing is scheduled for 11 a.m. in Room 2154 of the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, DC.

In June HUD suspended further federal funding to LAHSA until officials could demonstrate that adequate safeguards were in place to protect taxpayer dollars. A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s cuts in August.

The panel is investigating alleged abuse of federal grants intended to address homelessness — with a particular focus on LAHSA and its distribution of federal money to nonprofits in Los Angeles and the surrounding area.

“Because Los Angeles officials have not adequately protected federal taxpayer dollars, it appears that many nonprofits to which those funds have been allocated are not using them for their intended purpose,” Burchett wrote to Bass.

The DOGE subcommittee is part of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is the House’s principal oversight committee with broad authority to investigate “any matter” at “any time.”

The House panel is demanding documents from Bass’ office covering the period from Jan. 1, 2020, to the present, including records on LAHSA’s internal controls, the use of federal homelessness funds, and communications between the mayor’s office, LAHSA, the City Council and LA County Board of Supervisors. The documents are due by Sept. 14 — one day before the hearing.

LAHSA has received more than $1 billion in federal funding since 2021, including $220 million in 2024 alone, according to the letter.

The panel also cited a Department of Housing and Urban Development inspector general investigation into LAHSA’s handling of federal funds, including alleged “repeated false statements” and failures involving financial management, internal controls and safeguards against conflicts of interest.

In June HUD suspended further federal funding to LAHSA until officials could demonstrate that adequate safeguards were in place to protect taxpayer dollars. A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s cuts in August.

And as soon as the US Supreme Court takes a look at the thing, they’ll once again rule for the administration. So another spending flow is pinched off.

The scrutiny comes as homelessness remains a massive problem in Los Angeles.

Warm weather, lots of bennies, the law abiding restrained while the homeless are allowed to do as they will where they will — from an economic perspective, why would the homeless be anywhere else?

California has around 182,000 homeless people, including about 73,000 in Los Angeles County and more than 45,000 in the city, a 3.4% increase from the previous year, according to HUD Data.

The wonder is that it isn’t more — and that communities around the country aren’t handing their homeless vouchers for bus rides to LA the way southern border towns used to give vouchers for illegals to head to New York City.

LAHSA is a joint city-county agency responsible for coordinating homeless services, with the city and county sharing oversight of federal funds flowing to the authority. Bass and the LA City Council collectively appoint half of LAHSA’s governing board, while members of the county Board of Supervisors appoint the other members.

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