Trump admin yanks funding from LA homeless agency amid explosive fraud probe: Necessary step

A top Trump agency is cutting off funding to the Los Angeles agency responsible for coordinating billions in homelessness spending after accusing it of “obvious fraud,” “wanton mismanagement” and repeated failures to safeguard taxpayer dollars, Fox News Digital has learned.The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which is a member of the White House fraud task force led by Vice President JD Vance, is immediately suspending the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s (LAHSA) federal funding while HUD’s inspector general investigates potential offenses by the agency and its leadership, according to a letter sent to LAHSA’s board chair Wendy Greuel and its CEO Gita O’Neill, which was obtained and reviewed by Fox News Digital. The letter detailed conflicts of interest, financial mismanagement, fraud, lack of oversight, and more from the homelessness agency, which has faced efforts by the city and county to take it over.The move puts one of the country’s biggest homelessness bureaucracies under direct federal scrutiny after years of criticism that billions have gone into homelessness programs in Los Angeles while the crisis remains entrenched on the streets.LAHSA receives funding at the city, county, state and federal level, with the group getting nearly $1 billion from just the federal government since 2021, according to HUD.“Suspending LAHSA’s participation in federal government programs is a necessary step in accomplishing that critical mission in Los Angeles,” HUD wrote in the letter.

“LAHSA’s failures have been so severe and pervasive that Los Angeles County has withdrawn its funding for the agency, and the City of Los Angeles is considering doing so as well.”LAHSA’s former top executive, Va Lecia Adams Kellum, resigned last year after she was found to have been a party to directing $2.1 million in federal funds under LAHSA’s control to her husband’s Santa Monica-based nonprofit employer.HUD says a federa...