By Jorge Casuso

February 24, 2026 -- County Supervisor Lindsey P. Horvath on Friday called for removing funding from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) to "stop the madness" that has brought its operations to a standstill.

Horvath sounded the alarm hours after a meeting of LAHSA's Finance Committee revealed the agency can't pay its bills and is refusing help with its day-to-day operations.

"After today’s LAHSA Finance Committee meeting, it is clearer than ever why the County of Los Angeles must remove our taxpayer funds from LAHSA," Horvath said in a statement.

"LAHSA balance sheets don’t balance, and they fail to provide real-time financial information to their very own commissioners," Horvath said in a press release issued Friday evening.

"If LAHSA were a publicly traded company, regulators would shut them down."

The Finance Committee revealed that LAHSA:

• Does not have the staffing or expertise to pay its bills;
  
  
• Has advanced funding from the County, yet "cannot pay service providers for services already rendered many months ago," and
  
  
• Needs help, yet has "refused 24 qualified County staff to assist with day-to-day operations, at no-cost to the agency."
  

Horvath noted that "County dollars are still at LAHSA until July 1, which is why I am sounding the alarm."

"Undoubtedly there is more to uncover that will disappoint us all," Horvath said. "We must stop this madness."

Horvath has called for "a public hearing at the Board of Supervisors" and "a forensic audit with County auditors embedding immediately."

She is also calling for "immediate payment of outstanding invoices for services rendered by providers contracted on behalf of the County."

Horvath's call to action comes nearly one year after the Board of Supervisors voted 4 to 0 last April 1 to replace the beleaguered homeless agency with a newly created centralized department ("County Supervisors Overhaul Homeless Services," April 2, 2025).

The action gave the Board direct oversight of the functions performed by LAHSA, which receives $300 million per year in County funding but failed to properly account for billions of dollars in spending since it was established in 1993.

"Accountability and transparency are long overdue and will finally be delivered through the reforms we’ve ushered in," Horvath said.

"Since I was elected to the Board of Supervisors, I have been tenaciously pursuing the truth.

"Three years later and the truth is this: the old system is broken -- and that is why we are building a new one that actually works."