Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is walking away from the city’s embattled homelessness authority — as a House panel demands answers about alleged “waste, fraud and abuse” involving more than $1 billion in federal funds.
Bass is stepping down from the governing commission of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority on Wednesday and will appoint a replacement, her office confirmed.
“Mayor Bass is stepping off the board of LAHSA tomorrow, Sept. 9, and will be appointing a new appointee,” a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office said on Tuesday.
The sudden departure comes as LAHSA faces mounting scrutiny over its management of taxpayer money — and as Bass herself is under congressional pressure to explain the city’s homelessness spending.
The House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency had demanded Bass appear at a Sept. 15 hearing examining alleged “waste, fraud and abuse” involving federal homelessness funding. Bass’ office has since told the panel she is unavailable to testify that day.
“By stepping down from the LAHSA board, Mayor Bass has all but admitted that she failed to address Los Angeles’ homelessness crisis,” Subcommittee Chairman Tim Burchett told the California Post.
“If Mayor Bass wanted to take responsibility, she would appear and testify at Tuesday’s Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency hearing.”
Burchett’s staff said Bass’s office contacted subcommittee staff and said she was unable to appear at the Sept. 15 hearing, but did not provide a reason.
Her office said she would be willing to testify at a future hearing, and the subcommittee will work with her office to schedule a date. In the meantime, the Sept. 15 hearing will move forward with other witnesses.
Her exit from LAHSA also follows revelations that she has been largely absent from the commission she appointed herself to, as previously reported by LAist.
Bass skipped 25 of 47 LAHSA commission meetings since joining the board in late 2023, including 13 of 21 meetings during the most recent year.
The mayor said she simply does not have the time to act in the role.
“I am going to be stepping down because I just — in terms of time and all,” Bass told KFI during an appearance on the “Gary and Shannon” show Friday.
Bass’ three-year term on the commission technically expired June 30, but she remained on the panel until Tuesday. Her replacement will become one of 10 commissioners overseeing LAHSA, a joint city-county authority responsible for coordinating the region’s homelessness response.
The House DOGE subcommittee has said it plans to proceed with its hearing even without Bass, while requesting records from her office covering LAHSA’s internal controls, federal funding and communications between the mayor’s office and other government agencies.
The documents are due Sept. 14 — one day before Bass was originally asked to appear before the panel.
The Trump administration has sought to suspend LAHSA, while Los Angeles County has pulled most of its funding from the authority and established its own homelessness department in response to concerns over the agency’s performance.
Scrutiny inside the agency has intensified in recent weeks.
Justin Szlasa, a LAHSA commissioner who had pushed for stronger auditing and oversight, was recently removed as chair of the agency’s audit committee by the commission’s new chair. Szlasa had previously uncovered problems involving a nonprofit being paid to operate more homeless camping spaces than actually existed, according to LAist.
“Democrats have proven time and again that they have no interest in solving the homelessness crisis plaguing America’s cities. Instead of pursuing solutions that work, they continue throwing millions of taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars at a broken system,” Burchett said.
