Create a New Bureau of Homelessness Oversight within the LA Housing De

CITY COUNCIL - Taxpayers can gain valuable insights from the discussions and comments of councilmembers (our elected officials) at the LA City 'Horseshoe' prior to them voting on a budget item.

Meeting of the LA City Council on the presentation of reports by the Budget and Finance Committee relative to the mayor’s proposed 2025-26

For example, on May 22, Councilmember John Lee for District 12 moved agenda-item 120 to send back to the Policy Committee, ‘Create a new Bureau of Homelessness Oversight within the Housing Department’ because Council had not had a policy discussion at least on the four options available, he said. Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez for District 7 seconded the motion. “Policy conversations should not be done with this budget, we need to know what the proper reporting would look like,” said Ms. Rodriguez.

What Would the New Bureau Look Like?

Nithya Raman, Councilwoman for District 4, was in favor of having a centralized Homelessness Bureau within the Housing Department. This move would not preclude the Council from former policy discussions or it continuing to have them on homelessness oversight, she said. “At the time, when thousands of federal dollars of housing vouchers are leaving 3,000 people with potentially no funding for their housing in our Emergency Housing Vouchers system, and the dissolution of the Los Angeles Homeless Service Authority (LAHSA) as the county pulls out its Measure A and Local Solutions Fund, this motion would benefit us and it will not disrupt any activities that Council Districts engage in,” Raman asserted.

In addition, Raman stressed that presently, the City does not have a policy Bureau that advocates for local resources to staff up our homelessness program better than it has been doing, to provide us with data and accountability and to help us fill empty beds. Bureau will help us use every dollar, hundreds of millions of dollars. It will help us advocate for more resources from Measure A Local Solution Fund [4/3/25], and its programs as LACAHSA [Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solution Agency Funding], and assist to compare across different investments to help us prepare for urgent challenges ahead, Raman said. [Measure A, replaced Measure H, is an ongoing half-cent sales tax approved by LA County voters on Nov. 14, 2024].

Cleaning and Rapid Engagement (CARE Plus) Program

On the other hand, Tracy Parks, Councilwoman of District 11, asked, the City Administrator Office (CAO) to provide the number of Council District’s that it has engaged within the CARE Plus and Multi-Disciplinary Teams (MDT) Operations, this fiscal year?

CAO staffer Stephany responded ---to Councilwoman Park’s questions--- since this effort [CARE Plus and MDT] started in June 2022 through April 2025, our office has served as a point of contact for the council districts, with a reduction in response time. RV [recreational vehicle used as dwellings] Office in CAO has conducted 623 Operations in coordination with Council District Offices; removed at least 1,277 RVs from the public right-of- ways. Now that we are coordinating with the fire department there’s a reduction of time for removing burnt vehicles and RVs. “We used Interim Housing resources which led to Housing 336 PEH [People Experiencing Homelessness],” CAO staffer said.

According to City Administrator Officer (CAO) Matt Szabo, the City Administration Office traditionally is the city’s central financial administration office that works on behalf of the council and the mayor: It gives direction in financial management to the city departments; it works with multi-agency funding and is a financial not an operational department. But there are exceptions: As a result of the Streets Strategies Plan, the Council placed a staff team with operational functions that the CAO was required to fulfill in its coordinating role with council districts, but this is not a typical work in the CAO’s Office, Mr. Szabo said. CAO did not make this proposal in the budget. It was a decision in policy and budget by the Council for homeless response teams. Also, ‘Our office manages the Crisis Response contracts’ while it is established and grows. This was a decision was made by ‘the council committee’.

Aside from operations, “CAO retains the core function of financial and fiscal oversight of the multitude of funds worth over $900M that go into homelessness from over 25 different sources, including more than 300M from the general fund. It is critical that the CAO maintain that role and capacity to effectively manage that role,” Szabo said.

Imelda Padilla, Councilmember for District 6, described her experience with the cleanup of RV encampments as coordinated by the CAO for Care Plus operations at CD 6, where the CAO coordinates with the LA Department of Transportation to close the streets as necessary, LAPD so all employees feel safe, LA Sanitation for clean ups, as well as the CARE Plus service providers.

Photo taken on May 31, 2025 of an encampment on Second Street west of Beaudry in DTLA.

In addition, Councilwoman Parks, whose dedicated work transformed the streets lined with homeless encampments in Venice Beach in coordination with CARE Plus teams from the CAO, welcomed Tiena Johnson Hall for discussion on the matter---General Manager of the Housing Department who came aboard the department after January 1, 2025. Then Councilwoman Parks, asked General Manager Hall a series of relevant questions regarding interim housing and cleanup operations to help her decide on whether to vote for the creation of a Homelessness Bureau within the Housing Department or not.

· Do you know the number of HomeKey2 projects that are in operation?

· Do you know if any of them are opened?

· How many HomeKey2 projects were acquired in 2022?

· How many CARE Plus operations has Housing ever completed?

Housing General Manager Hall could not answer any of the questions, but said, she could find out and do a follow up.

“Whether, I ask how many empty beds are floating around in the city? Housing does not know”, express Councilmember Parks.

The not knowing of important statistics by the General Manager stirred up Ms. Parks, because last year at a Council Meeting, the former housing general manager, could not provide the number of units on the properties of small housing landlords, or big landlords, stifling the discussion on the Council floor because general manager did not have an answer, said Councilwoman Parks. Then, Ms. Parks discussed a HomeKey2 building on Sepulveda Boulevard that has been sitting empty for three years in CD 11 that could be housing individuals to meet the Alliance goals. That information did not seem to go anywhere, in this case.

“We are here talking about removing one tool from the CAO Office that actually works. Why are we talking about transferring a program that has worked.” Councilwoman Parks asked. In closing, Parks said that she would vote no, on the motion to Create a new Bureau of Homelessness Oversight within the Housing Department, that would transfer the RV Program out of the CAO. The Council Motion was adopted with (10) Ayes and (5) Nays.