The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority on Monday announced plans to lay off 284 employees, citing looming reductions in funding from LA County.
LAHSA formally notified labor union SEIU Local 721, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, LA Mayor Karen Bass and state officials of the intent to issue layoff notices on April 30 to 216 union-represented staffers and 68 nonunion employees. Officials said the final day of employment is projected to be June 30, coinciding with the end of the current fiscal year.
“I want to profoundly thank our staff for their unwavering dedication and hard work serving people experiencing homelessness across Los Angeles County,” LAHSA interim CEO Gita O’Neill said in a statement. “Our staff has been the driving force behind the historic reductions in street homelessness we’ve seen over the past two years. Though our agency’s structure is changing, the monumental impact of their work — housing nearly 80,000 people over three years — speaks for itself.”
According to LAHSA, the layoffs resulted primarily from impending funding cuts following county supervisors’ decision to establish the new Department of Homeless Services and Housing.
The staff reductions will eliminate 414 positions, 130 of which are currently vacant, the agency reported. The layoffs will reduce the total staff from 602 to 318 employees, with 55 additional vacant positions if there are no resignations between now and June 30, LAHSA spokesman Ahmad Chapman said.
The final details of the city of Los Angeles budget, expected to be finalized by early June, may result in some employees who received layoff notices to continue working for the agency after June 30, according to LAHSA.
On Monday, Bass proposed a $14.89 billion budget for fiscal year 2026-27 that allocates about $788 million for homelessness spending, a 17.3% decrease or $165.2 million less compared with the current budget’s $953.3 million.
Bass has proposed funding for LAHSA to increase from $50.65 million to $52.82 million, or by approximately $2.2 million, documents show.
Money from the city to LAHSA is expected to fund the annual point-in-time count of individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness, continuum of care administration services, shelter and housing and efforts to reduce street homelessness.
Along with the announcement of job cuts, LAHSA officials touted the agency’s accomplishments:
- Two consecutive years of overall reductions in homelessness;
- A 14% countywide reduction in street homelessness;
- An 18% decrease in street homelessness within the city of LA; and
- 77,834 permanent housing placements from 2022 to 2024, with a 24% annual increase in 2024 compared with 2022.
“The historic milestones we have achieved are a direct result of the relentless dedication of LAHSA’s workforce, but the changing funding landscape requires us to right-size and calibrate our agency for the future,” LAHSA Commission Chair Amber Sheikh said in a statement. “My fellow Commissioners and I are committed to this necessary restructuring to ensure system continuity. What matters most right now is reshaping LAHSA to provide uninterrupted support for the service providers on the frontlines every single day, working to end homelessness across Los Angeles.”
O’Neill told LAHSA commissioners in February that the agency is preparing to become a fundamentally different organization starting in July.
“Moving forward, LAHSA will transition into a highly specialized entity,” according to agency officials.
The nation’s largest continuum of care agency will be more narrowly focused on “macro-level system operations and governance.” Highlights include:
- Operation of the Homeless Management Information System and the Coordinated Entry System;
- Continuum of care governance and system performance measurement;
- Administration of the annual Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count; and
- Leading the annual competition for federal grant funding.
LAHSA’s contracting and program oversight role will refocus primarily to serving the city of LA, officials said. To strengthen oversight, LAHSA has engaged the firm KPMG, which has experts who are currently helping to rebuild and optimize the agency’s financial infrastructure.
“This restructuring marks a necessary evolution for LAHSA,” O’Neill said. “By narrowing our focus to macro-level governance, data management, and securing federal funding, we are stepping into our true role as a strategic architect of the region’s homelessness response system. This shift allows us to operate with greater precision and deliver stronger, more measurable system-wide performance. Our work with KMPG and the restructuring we’ve already put in place for contracting will help us be a strong partner to the City as well.”
Last year the Board of Supervisors OK’d the county’s first homelessness department and authorized the transfer of some employees and roughly $300 million from LAHSA to the new agency. The decision followed audits that discovered LAHSA did not properly track spending and services provided.
The Department of Homeless Services and Housing launched in January, with expectations for the department fully operate by July.
Los Angeles city officials are considering shifting some programs away from LAHSA during the next fiscal year.
