Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is leaving her post on the city’s troubled homelessness authority as congressional investigators intensify scrutiny of alleged “waste, fraud and abuse” tied to more than $1 billion in federal homelessness funding.
Bass will step down Wednesday from the governing commission of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, and she plans to name 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 Tuesday.
Her abrupt exit lands at a politically sensitive moment for LAHSA, which is facing growing questions over how taxpayer dollars have been managed, while Bass is also being pressed by Congress to account for Los Angeles’ homelessness spending.
The House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency had called on Bass to appear at a Sept. 15 hearing focused on alleged “waste, fraud and abuse” involving federal funds earmarked for homelessness programs. Her office has since informed the panel that she is not available to testify on that date.
“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.”
According to Burchett’s staff, Bass’ office contacted subcommittee staff to say she could not attend the Sept. 15 hearing, but did not give a reason for her absence.
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.
