The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has launched a review of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s financial and operational practices, citing concerns of “serious gaps” in oversight and delayed payments to homeless service providers, officials said Thursday.
The county sent a letter to LAHSA CEO Gita O’Neill on Wednesday notifying the agency of the evaluation. The review will focus on LAHSA’s ability to process invoices, which has resulted in delays in payments to county-funded service providers, as well as failure to issue scheduled pay advances at the end of January 2026.
The review is expected to begin next week and conclude in approximately two weeks, according to the county letter.
“Our communities are done with LAHSA’s mismanagement and payment delays. These failures have destabilized providers and eroded public trust — and they must end,” Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said in a statement.
“Taxpayers deserve transparency. Providers deserve to be paid on time. People experiencing homelessness deserve a system that works,” Horvath added.
The delays in payment came to light in a heated meeting of the LAHSA Financial Committee last week.
LAHSA is expected to disburse nearly $700 million to contractors. Halfway through the fiscal year, the agency still owes 116 service providers for their services. In total, the agency owes at least $69 million in outstanding invoices to contractors.
In the letter, LA County Acting CEO Joseph Nicchitta said the review is intended to identify policies and operational processes that LAHSA should implement to ensure payments are made in a timely fashion.
O’Neill said the agency takes its responsibility seriously, and is moving “aggressively to get these resources into providers’ hands as quickly as possible.”
The agency has acknowledged a backlog in issuing payments caused by a combination of contracting delays, outdated internal policies and the loss of mid-level leaders with institutional knowledge due to funding shifts.
In December, the agency implemented a restructuring plan for contracts to prevent a similar avalanche of invoices experienced this year. O’Neill said officials expect to hire consultants to help with payment issues. including modernizing how LAHSA issues and recoups advances, submits cash requests to funders, and checks disbursement and selection procedures.
“We are confident that the Auditor-Controller Office’s review of our aging payables will show the same pain points in our invoice payment processes that LAHSA is already identifying,” O’Neill said in her statement. “We look forward to its insight and assistance as we move forward with planned changes to this process.”
Janine Lim, LAHSA’s deputy chief financial officer, explained during Friday’s meeting that for city-funded contracts the agency has yet to receive some of the money to pay service providers. Meanwhile, the agency failed to pay county-funded contracts, in part due to bad timing.
Lim said financial department staff are overworked, overwhelmed and have low morale.
Amy Perkins, a LAHSA commissioner and member of the finance committee, also criticized LAHSA during the meeting.
“This is exactly why we have said for a long time the structure of LAHSA doesn’t work,” Perkins said. “How are you supposed to administer funding for people who won’t pay you?”
Last year, the Board of Supervisors voted to move $300 million away from LAHSA, a process that is expected to begin in July. Those dollars will support the county’s new Homeless Services and Housing Department.
Perkins recognized that decision was going to impact the agency’s capability, but she said the county was prepared to offer additional support — which the agency squandered, she added.
“You were offered two dozen staff, well-trained staff, who nevertheless would have to be trained by LAHSA to help you,” Perkins said, noting the agency opted to have those county staffers help with contracts.
“You have not requested any additional support or staffing to help you process the checks that are needed to get out as a result of all the contracts being executed,” Perkins added.
Lim argued the finance department’s processes are “a lot more complex in nature” compared to the contracting unit.
“In my opinion, it was a lot easier to train the staff to execute contracts,” Lim said.
Perkins said the issues are impacting service providers, noting she’s received calls from contractors who say they will close if they aren’t paid.
“They don’t want to say that publicly because they don’t want to scare their staff, and they will do everything they can not to close,” Perkins said. “They have maxed out their lines of credit. There’s no more rocks to turn over. Vendors are walking off jobs.”