Los Angeles homeless chief to resign after the county guts her agency

Va Lecia Adams Kellum, the caput of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, announced her resignation Friday, conscionable days aft the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to portion her bureau of much than $300 cardinal and hundreds of workers.

In a missive delivered to the agency's committee of commissioners Friday afternoon, Adams Kellum said that owed to the move, "shifting cardinal responsibilities from LAHSA to LA County, present is the close clip for maine to resign arsenic CEO."

Adams Kellum, whose bureau has been nether occurrence for respective months, committed to enactment for a modulation play 120 days oregon longer if needed.

Adams Kellum took the helm of the bureau successful March 2023, astatine a clip erstwhile it was successful the midst of a historical maturation spurt, with caller funds flowing into homelessness programs, but besides faced heightened disapproval for disjointed services, mediocre accounting and, ultimately, the inability to trim the fig of radical connected the streets.

As the erstwhile caput of the St. Joseph Center successful Venice, which she helped alteration into a large supplier of stateless services, Adams Kellum brought acquisition to a occupation that historically had been successful the hands of vocation bureaucrats and vowed to tackle the agency's well-documented deficiencies.

She brought a estimation arsenic a occupation solver for her absorption of the cleanup of a monolithic stateless encampment that grew connected the Venice formation and boardwalk during the pandemic. She was credited with designing Mayor Karen Bass' Inside Safe encampment removal programme based connected that experience.

Yet adjacent arsenic she claimed occurrence successful speeding up the agency's contracting process, improving information absorption and securing reductions successful thoroughfare homelessness implicit the past 2 years, her bureau was the taxable of sharply captious audits, which successful crook fueled a increasing clamor for structural change.

In an interrogation with The Times connected Friday, Adams Kellum said she hasn't taken a caller presumption but that she volition enactment successful stateless services.

"That's my ngo successful life," she said. "I stay truthful steadfast successful my committedness to addressing homelessness and helping forestall it and marque definite it's rare, little and non-reoccurring."

Adams Kellum said she had hoped to the past infinitesimal that her bureau could "continue to determination successful sync with the metropolis and region with a collaborative and existent aligned absorption connected driving down homelessness and reducing unsheltered homelessness.

"I've been hoping to the extremity that we could support doing it but doing amended and different," she said.

It wasn't to be.

On Tuesday, the supervisors voted 4-0 to instrumentality its backing retired of LAHSA and enactment it into a caller region homelessness agency. The region provides $348 cardinal — oregon astir 40% of LAHSA's yearly fund — and pays for an estimated 470 workers.

Under the board's timetable, astir of that money, and perchance each of those workers, would beryllium moved into the caller region bureau by July 1, 2026.

In caller weeks, Adams Kellum had touted her agency's work, including a alteration successful thoroughfare homelessness of much than 5% successful the region and much than 10% successful the metropolis past year.

Before Tuesday's vote, region supervisors gave her small accidental to support her agency. Rather than extending her the courtesy of speaking astatine magnitude arsenic a visiting official, which Adams Kellum had done often before, Chairwoman Kathryn Barger lone granted her 30 seconds much than a subordinate of the public.

After she had spoken for 90 seconds, her mic was chopped off. "We kept our promises," she said, aft the region had stopped broadcasting her words connected their audio system.

Adams Kellum and her bureau had been nether occurrence for months. In effect to captious audits, she has repeatedly acknowledged its flaws, and characterized her ngo arsenic 1 of reforming problems that she inherited from anterior administrations.

In her resignation letter, she outlined fractional a twelve accomplishments, including a maestro leasing programme that has rapidly secured 772 units supportive housing, an beforehand outgo exemplary to get providers upfront backing and creating a structure preservation strategy acceptable to motorboat successful July.

"It's been known arsenic a occupation successful the strategy for years of not knowing wherever the openings are and however that impacts referrals," she said successful the interview.

In November, the county’s auditor-controller issued a study concluding that lax accounting procedures and poorly written contracts had prevented LAHSA from recouping millions of dollars it had provided to its contractors arsenic an beforehand successful the 2017-2018 fiscal year. (LAHSA officials responded by saying afloat repayment was not owed until 2027.)

Another audit, demanded by a national justice overseeing a lawsuit involving homelessness services, recovered that LAHSA lacks capable fiscal oversight to guarantee that its contractors present the services they are paid to provide. That has near the bureau susceptible to discarded and fraud, the audit said.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, the justice who commissioned the audit, criticized Adams Kellum for failing to amusement up for a proceeding wherever the findings were discussed. Told that she was successful Boston and would not attend, Carter said that was "not acceptable to me."

Adams Kellum sent a missive to the tribunal outlining reforms by her bureau to amended fiscal and declaration oversight.

Carter, astatine his hearing, said LAHSA had offered "meaningless" promises. "And frankly, I could attraction less," helium said. "If they were going to bash it, they should person done it, oregon they should person fixed you a roadworthy representation present of ... however they're going to bash it."

Adams Kellum besides has drawn disapproval for signing a $2.1-million declaration betwixt her bureau and Upward Bound House, a nonprofit radical that employs her husband.

Barger said Adams Kellum's handling of the contented was "sloppy," portion others called it a wide struggle of interest.

Adams Kellum said the contract, which she signed successful May 2024, was sent to her for her physics signature successful error. LAHSA officials said the agency's 10-member committee had already taken up that declaration 9 months earlier. When the point came up astatine that meeting, Adams Kellum stepped retired of the room, according to the gathering minutes.

Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond successful your inbox six days a week.

This communicative primitively appeared successful Los Angeles Times.