LOS ANGELES—Following an audit critical of a city-county homeless service agency, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed Tuesday to explore the creation of a county department to centralize homeless services.

The board approved the motion on a 4–0 vote, with Supervisor Holly Mitchell abstaining. Mitchell questioned whether creating a county department would only shift persistent administrative challenges from one agency to another.

Mitchell also noted that the county audit that cited financial-control issues with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority only evaluated money being disseminated, not the actual work being done to assist the homeless.

The audit of LAHSA was requested by Supervisor Lindsay Horvath and the board in February, and its results were released last week.

The county Auditor-Controller Department report cited several concerns about LAHSA’s management of homeless funding, such as failing to recoup cash advances provided to subcontractors, failing to establish repayment schedules for subcontractors, lack of adequate records for tracking cash advances awarded to other agencies and failure to adequately monitor contracts with recipient agencies and document whether subcontractors who received funds actually met the terms of their contracts.

LAHSA officials disagreed with many of the issues cited in the report, but acknowledged others and said many had already been recognized and recommendations of the auditor were already in the process of being implemented, “with many having already been resolved.”

In its response to the audit provided to the county, LAHSA CEO Va Lecia Adams Kellum contended that several issues identified in the report were “in whole or in part attributable to LAHSA’s fiscal practices during the COVID-19 years. ... Therefore, these actions should be considered within a broader context of the public health emergency, rather than being assessed solely through the conventional accounting framework.”

She also noted that the period of time examined in the audit—fiscal year 2016-17 through 2023-24—“captured a time of rapid growth and expansion for LAHSA, both in its organizational size, scope and nature of its functions.” She said that during that time, the agency evolved from a conventional “pass-through grant and contract administrator into a systems administrator with significant programmatic and direct services roles.” She also wrote that the agency underwent a “complete agency-wide reorientation” between 2019 and 2022 to focus on public health responses due to the pandemic.

Speaking at Tuesday’s meeting, Horvath said a new county department would increase transparency for voters and improve the county’s oversight of services and efforts to bring the homeless off the street.

“We need a dedicated county department to centralize and streamline investments and programs to move faster and more intentionally towards a future where 75,000+ are safe in housing and supported,” Horvath said.

The board’s move came on the heels of voters approving Measure A in the November election, which will double and extend in perpetuity a countywide sales tax to fund homelessness measures.

Measure A will take effect April 1, 2025, and its revenue generation is expected to cross $1 billion in the fiscal year 2025-26. Supervisors on Tuesday stressed the need to use the funds collaboratively with regional agencies.

LAHSA has come under scrutiny from public officials in the past, with several Los Angeles City Council members calling for increased transparency about the agency’s operations.

In response, LAHSA earlier this year introduced data dashboards on its website designed to give a better picture of its operations. The dashboards allow viewers to access data on street outreach, interim housing and time-limited subsidies; details on LAHSA-funded programs and their efficacy; as well as Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe initiative and the county’s Pathway Home program.

The dashboards can show how many unhoused residents entered the rehousing system in respective City Council or Board of Supervisors’ districts, how many people individual programs have helped, and the performance of local service providers.

“We’ve been working hard to provide the public access to clear, easy-to-digest data on homelessness in Los Angeles,” Adams Kellum said at the time. “LAHSA is committed to transparency and accountability as we work toward ending homelessness for our unhoused neighbors.”

Tuesday’s motion asked the CEO to report back to the board within 60 days on the feasibility of creating a county department dedicated to homelessness issues, while LAHSA would “retain only the core functions including Homeless Management of Information System administration, the Greater Los Angeles Homeless County and other emergency response services as designated and funded by the board.”

Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who co-sponsored the motion to explore a new county department, stressed that the move was not an effort to blame LAHSA for shortcomings.

“Make no mistake—this is not an effort to point accountability away from our Board of Supervisors,” Barger said in a statement after the vote. “I believe a county department focused on homelessness will help us create more unity of effort and will also help end a blame game. Ultimately, our board is responsible and accountable for addressing the homelessness crisis. We are the entity that must make thoughtful, informed decisions and direct resources accordingly. The forthcoming analysis will further fuel our work and efforts to be introspective. I look forward to the report back and to continuing this important work.”

Supervisor Janice Hahn voted in support of the motion, but said she was open to a new county department only “if it will actually mean bringing people inside faster and more effectively addressing this humanitarian crisis. What I am not interested in is replacing one bureaucracy with another or rolling back the progress we have made linking arms with the city of Los Angeles.”