Wave Wire Services
LOS ANGELES — Days after the county Board of Supervisors voted to strip millions of dollars and move hundreds of workers away from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, its CEO announced her resignation.
Va Lecia Adams Kellum is expected to remain on board for a transition period of 120 days or longer if needed, according to a letter she submitted to the authority’s Board of Commissioners April 4.
“I am incredibly proud of LAHSA’s talented and dedicated staff and deeply grateful for their tireless work. I thank them and the commission for the opportunity to serve as CEO and for our partnership in reducing homelessness in our region,” Adams Kellum said in a statement.
In her resignation letter, Adams Kellum said it was the “right time” for her to step down after county leaders implemented a recommendation from the 2020 Blue Ribbon Commission on Homelessness, which called for shifting key responsibilities from the agency to a centralized department.
Housing Authority Commission Chair Wendy Gruel said that when it hired Adams Kellum in 2023, it was for her to be an “agent” of change. In a statement, Gruel said Adams Kellum has delivered “significant improvements” in areas such as transparency, contracting, provider payments and accountability.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass credited Adams Kellum as the architect of Inside Safe, a signature program intended to resolve street encampments and bring people into temporary housing.
“Despite this broken system, while homelessness rises across the country, Los Angeles is bucking that trend — street homelessness declined for the first time in more than six years, and early reports show that this progress continues for a second year,” Bass said in a statement. “This would not have been possible without Dr. Adams Kellum’s leadership and bold vision for what’s possible.
“She helped us move the needle to save lives, restore neighborhoods and show that homelessness can be solved.”
The homeless authority has touted unsheltered homelessness is likely to decrease by 5% to 10% for the second year in a row, according to preliminary results from the 2025 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count conducted in February.
On April 1, the county Board of Supervisors advanced a proposal to create its own department to coordinate regional homeless services, effectively de-funding the authority, a joint county-city agency that has long overseen such programs and that has come under fire due to the persistent crisis of people living on the streets.
The new county agency is expected to be in place by Jan. 1, with all funding pulled from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority and transferred to the new county department by July 1, 2026.
Board of Supervisors Chair Kathryn Barger, who co-authored the motion with Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, in a statement said she appreciates Adams Kellum’s service and her efforts to address the complex homelessness crisis in Los Angeles.
“Leadership transitions are challenging, but they also present an opportunity to reassess strategies and strengthen accountability,” Barger added.
The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority was created in 1993 to address homelessness in Los Angeles County. It is the lead entity that coordinates and manages federal, state, county and city funds for shelter, housing and services to people experiencing homelessness throughout the Los Angeles Continuum of Care, which encompasses all cities in the region with the exceptions of Long Beach, Pasadena and Glendale.
The agency has come under fire for its lack of transparency in addition to spending millions and not alleviating the homelessness crisis, such criticisms have only intensified following scathing audits.
Last year, an audit conducted by the Los Angeles County Auditor-Controller found that the agency provided $50.8 million of Measure H funds to nonprofit service providers in the 2017-18 fiscal year without formal agreements to determine how and when the funds would be repaid.
The authority has taken steps to recoup that money, but it only recovered $2.5 million, or 5%, as of July 8, 2024.
Additionally, approximately $409,000 was given to six subrecipients, who no longer contract with the authority. County auditors stated that the authority allegedly misused funds by paying for services under another government funder’s contract or grant.
A more recent audit, authorized by a federal judge and funded by the city of LA, found that the agency made it impossible to accurately track spending or the performance outcomes of its vendors.
LAist also reported on alleged ethics violations by Adams Kellum when she signed off on a $2.1 million contract with her husband’s employer — which she has denied any wrongdoing.
Authority officials have disputed some of the findings of these audits and urged officials to continue their partnership. The homeless agency has begun efforts to bolster transparency through the creation of 20 new databases, which better track available shelter beds and outcomes of services, among other things.
The agency also touted improvements in contracting and ensuring timely payments to service providers. The homeless authority also says it pioneered master leasing, an initiative to lease entire apartment buildings and housing homeless people much more quickly.
“Many long-standing issues with LAHSA and the rehousing effort stem from years of needed reform, and meaningful change takes time,” Adams Kellum wrote in her letter. “Our work was guided by challenges we identified from the start — none of which were new revelations in audits that primarily reviewed the period before my tenure.”
