Homelessness, corruption, and one-party misrule are colliding in Los Angeles, and the results are on full display in the streets of Downtown.
According to RedState, years of massive public spending have produced little more than bureaucratic bloat and human misery, with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) serving as the epicenter of failure. RedStates Managing Editor Jennifer Van Laar and other journalists have documented how staggering sums poured into LAHSAa joint venture of the City and County of Los Angelesand allied agencies have yielded few, if any, tangible improvements for the people supposedly being helped.
Although the video circulating is from 2025, recent visits to Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) show that conditions remain dire, stretching for block after block in a grim tableau of tents, trash, and despair. Skid Row, long a symbol of urban decay, has deteriorated even further under the citys progressive leadership.
As frequent Fox News contributor Dr. Houman David Hemmati put it, Skid Row in downtown @LACity had always been bad but under @MayorOfLA @KarenBassLA its unbearably worse. He urged the public to Read this entire thread by @MattFinnFNC to get a peek at the outrageously inhumane conditions and despicable animal cruelty happening in the open.
Hemmati blasted city officials for obsessing over petty code violations while ignoring a humanitarian disaster unfolding in plain sight. While they cite honest homeowners for having a fence thats an inch too high or a dumpster provided by an unapproved hauler, the very same government officials look the other way when a humanitarian crisis is occurring in plain city, just steps from city hall, he wrote.
His frustration culminated in a blunt demand for accountability from Los Angeles entrenched political class. The ENTIRE LA City government - minus @TraciParkforLA - should go immediately. @RecallBassNow, Hemmati declared.
Now, Republicans in Congress are stepping in where local Democrats have refused, demanding answers about where the money went and why the crisis keeps getting worse. The US House is calling on Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass to testify over alleged waste, fraud and abuse involving more than $1 billion in federal homelessness funding funneled through LAHSA, according to a letter obtained by The California Post.
The Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, chaired by Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), has summoned Bass to appear at a September 15 public hearing titled Fixing Fraud and Failure in Federally Funded Homelessness Services. The session is set for 11 a.m. in Room 2154 of the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C., placing Los Angeles homelessness apparatus under a rare spotlight outside California.
Burchett has been blunt about the stakes, noting that Los Angeles has received over $1 billion in federal funds to address homelessness since 2021, with little to show for it beyond worsening street conditions and a trail of questionable contracts. Los Angeles has received over $1 BILLION in federal funding to combat homelessness since 2021. Yet homelessness persists while reports expose corrupt contracts and nonprofit self-enrichment. @RepTimBurchett is calling on Mayor Karen Bass to testify, his office posted.
The subcommittee is also demanding a paper trail, seeking specific communications between the mayors office, LAHSA, and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors dating back to 2020. Meanwhile, the Trump administration had already sounded the alarm years earlier, pulling federal funding for the agency in June after the Department of Housing and Urban Development accused LAHSA of obvious fraud and wanton mismanagement.
Those accusations are backed by a series of glaring conflicts of interest and eyebrow-raising compensation packages. LAHSAs former top official, Va Lecia Adams Kellum, reportedly signed a $2.1 million contract and two amendments with a Santa Monica-based nonprofit where her husband held a senior leadership role, despite previously claiming she had recused herself from that matter and later insisting the documents landed on her desk inadvertently.
Another major contractor, 1736 Family Crisis Center, has also drawn scrutiny, not for its mission but for how its leadership has benefited from the homelessness gold rush. Its CEO, Carol Adelkoff, received $1.6 million in total compensation over two years, according to tax filings, all while living in Hawaii as her organization collected tens of millions from LAHSA since 2021.
Burchetts letter notes that LAHSA has taken in more than $1 billion in federal funding since 2021, including $220 million in 2024 alone, even as the crisis on the ground spirals. Official estimates put the homeless population at roughly 73,040 in Los Angeles County, with about 45,194 of those individuals living within the city limits.
The central question now is whether Mayor Bass will actually appear before Congress to defend this record of spending without results. The odds, many observers suspect, are that she will plead scheduling conflicts or overseas commitments rather than face pointed questions about a system that has enriched insiders while leaving the most vulnerable on the sidewalk.
If she does show up, the hearing will offer a rare moment of transparency for a city government that has long operated under the protective cover of one-party rule and progressive rhetoric. For taxpayers across the country whose dollars have funded this experiment in big-government social policy, the spectacle may finally reveal whether Los Angeles is serious about reformor determined to double down on failure.
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