LOS ANGELES — When Los Angeles first asked taxpayers to fund homeless services in 2015, city and county leaders promised to build an effective system to fight the housing crisis. Nearly a decade later, billions of dollars remain unaccounted for, and more than 90% of Measure H nonprofit debts are still unpaid.
From 2014 to 2024, homelessness in Los Angeles County rose by nearly 70%, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s annual Point-in-Time Count. During that same period, voters approved four separate tax measures to fund homeless programs. A federal audit, prompted by the LA Alliance for Human Rights, later opened to determine where the money went as homelessness continued to rise.
The LA Alliance audit examined Proposition HHH, a property tax bond passed in 2016, and Measure H, a ten-year quarter-cent county sales tax approved in 2017…