By Jorge Casuso
April 22, 2026 -- The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) -- which has come under increased scrutiny over its finances and operations -- will lay off 284 employees, the agency announced Monday.
The layoffs, which take effect July 1, are part of a restructuring that will eliminate a total of 414 positions, including 130 that are currently vacant, according to a report by City News Service.
Formal notification of the layoffs came as LA Mayor Karen Bass proposed a $14.89 billion City budget for the upcoming fiscal year that slashes homelessness spending by $165.2 million -- from $953.3 million to $788 million.
The budget, however, increases funding for LAHSA from $50.65 million to $52.82 million, or by approximately $2.2 million, according to city documents cited by City News.
The staffing cuts come two months after a review by LAHSA's Finance Committee revealed the agency can't pay its bills and is refusing help with its day-to-day operations ("Supervisor Sounds Alarm Over LAHSA," February 24, 2026).
The findings prompted the County Board of Supervisors to call for a review of the agency's finances that was scheduled to be presented at last week's Board meeting but was delayed ("County Officials to Take Up LAHSA Review," April 10, 2026).
“As July 1 approaches, Los Angeles County is committed to ensuring that every County contract is paid and that there is clear, transparent accounting for every dollar that has been invested in the homeless services system through LAHSA,” Supervisor Lindsey P. Horvath said in a statement to The Lookout.
“Delays in information are unacceptable and reflect a status quo that is not working. This is exactly why the County moved to bring these funds under the oversight of the Department of Homeless Services and Housing, where strong financial controls and Auditor-Controller best practices are embedded from the start.”
The newly created Department will assume control of County-funded LAHSA contracts on July 1. As required by California law, LAHSA sent notification of the layoffs to County and State officials, Mayor Bass and SEIU Local 721, the labor union representing its employees,.
In the letter, interim LAHSA CEO Gita O’Neill credited the agency with reducing the County's homeless population reflected in the results of the 2024 and 2025 counts, which were solely conducted by the agency for the first time.
“Our staff has been the driving force behind the historic reductions in street homelessness we’ve seen over the past two years," O'Neill said.
"Though our agency’s structure is changing, the monumental impact of their work -- housing nearly 80,000 people over three years -- speaks for itself,” O’Neill added.
But the success of LAHSA's "Housing First" approach has been strongly questioned by the findings of an investigation published on April 14 by the LA Times that focused on the City of LA's Inside Safe program.
The program launched by Bass in December 2022 moved some 5,800 people living in encampments into interim housing, mostly in hotels and motels, at a cost of more than $300 million.
The LA Times investigation found that in December, "as the program finished its third year, about 40 percent of the people who had gone indoors -- 2,300 of the 5,800 -- were back on the street, according to LAHSA’s dashboard."
The general reduction in LA County's homeless population touted by O'Neill has also been called into question after technical glitches and a drop in volunteers marred LAHSA's homeless counts.
A report by the RAND Corporation released last July found that the counts taken by the internationally renowned research firm in Venice, Hollywood and LA Skid Row differed widely from those taken by LAHSA ("RAND Study Calls Into Question LA County's Homeless Counts," July 9, 2025).
In addition to the controversies surrounding LAHSA's success addressing the nation's largest homeless population, the agency is under investigation by Federal officials for alleged misuse of funds.
LAHSA recently missed a key federal audit deadline that represents one of the agency's most crucial oversight checks and was signaled out by the U.S. Government in a budget proposal that slashes nearly $393 million in federal funding for homeless programs nationwide.
"LAHSA has an abysmal record of reducing what is the highest number of street homeless individuals in the United States," the budget document said, adding that "an independent audit issued in March 2025 found that the authority failed to accurately track billions of Federal and local dollars."
In her letter, O’Neill noted that LAHSA will be a “fundamentally” different organization come July, when the agency "is expected to focus on the operation of the Homeless Management Information System and Coordinated Entry System," according to City News.
LAHSA also will focus on "governance and system performance, and overseeing the annual homeless count and lead grant awards," while its "contracting and program oversight role will be refocused primarily on the city," the news service reported.
“This restructuring marks a necessary evolution for LAHSA,” O’Neill wrote. “By narrowing our focus to macro-level governance, data management, and securing federal funding, we are stepping into our true role as a strategic architect of the region’s homelessness response system.”