By Lookout Staff
February 5, 2026 -- On Tuesday, the LA County Board of Supervisors took steps to strengthen oversight and accountability in homeless services contracts.
The unanimously approved motion comes after "years of documented deficiencies in contract monitoring and financial oversight under the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA)," said Supervisor Lindsey P. Horvath, who co-sponsored the motion.
The "deficiencies" include "repeated audit findings that identified lapses in accountability and increased risk of lost or misused funds.
"These failures were a key reason the Board voted to remove County homeless services funding from LAHSA and return direct oversight to a centralized County department," Horvath said.
The motion comes one month after the County launched the Department of Homeless Services and Housing (HSH) on January 1 that was created to set a new standard of trust and accountability.
“As the department launches, every contract, every dollar, and every outcome must withstand scrutiny," Horvath said in a statement.
"Best practices aren’t optional—they’re required. Contracts will be proactively and aggressively monitored so the public knows their dollars are being used exactly as intended."
The Board's vote comes one month after Vice President JD Vance announced a new federal task force aimed at tackling fraud across the country.
President Trump is expected to sign an executive order to establish the task force, which will search for welfare abuses in California and other states after high-profile funding scandals in the Minneapolis area.
“We know that the fraud isn’t just happening in the Minneapolis (area),” Vance said during a recent briefing. “It’s happening in states like Ohio. It’s happening in states like California.”
According to sources, the task force will train the spotlight on California "after auditors have flagged billions of fraud in pandemic relief payments, unemployment insurance claims and other benefits," according to the New York Post.
A court-ordered audit early last year found that $2.3 billion in homeless funding sent to LA County between June 2020 and June 2024 could not be fully accounted for.
The audit found that homelessness services provided by City and County of Los Angeles were “disjointed” and lacked financial controls to monitor contracts.
Last April, the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, Bill Essayli, said the State had spent more than $24 billion over the past five years to address homelessness.
“But officials have been unable to account for all the expenditures and outcomes, and the homeless crisis has only gotten worse," Essayli said.