Karen Bass skips Home homelessness listening to for Pacific Palisades occasion

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass will probably be hundreds of miles away from Capitol Hill Tuesday — breaking floor on a neighborhood challenge in Pacific Palisades — when a Home DOGE panel holds a listening to into alleged issues with greater than $1 billion in federal homelessness funding.

Bass’s schedule reveals she is about to spend the afternoon within the fire-ravaged enclave, the place she’s going to be part of billionaire developer Rick Caruso, Lakers coach JJ Redick and different leaders for a 1 p.m. groundbreaking ceremony.

The looks comes on the identical day she was requested to look earlier than the Home Subcommittee on Delivering on Authorities Effectivity in Washington DC to reply questions on alleged “waste, fraud and abuse” involving federal homelessness cash.

The Home committee’s listening to, titled “Fixing Fraud and Failure in Federally Funded Homelessness Companies,” is scheduled for Tuesday 11 pm PST.

Bass’ lawyer, David Michaelson, beforehand advised the panel that “sadly the mayor will not be obtainable on that date,” with out explaining why she couldn’t attend.

The DOGE panel had additionally demanded information courting again to 2020 regarding LAHSA’s inner controls, federal funding and communications between Bass’ workplace, the homeless authority, Metropolis Council and the LA County Board of Supervisors. 

The mayor’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to The Submit’s request for touch upon whether or not it had submitted the paperwork requested by Congress.

A supply accustomed to the matter mentioned Bass’ workplace has made an preliminary doc manufacturing to the Oversight Committee, however that the supplies supplied thus far don’t seem to incorporate private paperwork or communications.

They mentioned roughly 4,000 of the roughly 4,800 pages supplied include proposed and enacted metropolis budgets, and that the committee intends to comply with up with the mayor’s workplace relating to the remaining requested supplies.

The Tuesday occasion is for a brand new neighborhood house being rebuilt within the Palisades, a neighborhood devastated by the January 2025 wildfires.

The challenge is a public-private effort involving Caruso’s Steadfast LA and LA Sturdy Sports activities, Redick’s nonprofit group.

The teams are working with the town to rebuild the Pacific Palisades Park and Recreation Heart, which was largely destroyed within the fires.

The DOGE investigation facilities on the Los Angeles Homeless Companies Authority, which has obtained greater than $1 billion in federal funding since 2021, in accordance with the congressional panel.

The committee has raised allegations involving potential waste, fraud, abuse and problematic contracting and grant-making.

Bass has additionally not too long ago minimize ties with LAHSA, stepping down from its governing fee and saying she would appoint a alternative because the company confronted rising scrutiny.

Her workplace additionally didn’t reply to earlier requests from the paper in search of clarification about any prior commitments which have made her unavailable for the subcommittee listening to.

“It’s a disgrace that Mayor Karen Bass refuses to point out as much as testify about her function in
all this,” Subcommittee Chairman Tim Burchett mentioned.

“Homelessness has risen in Los Angeles on her watch, and he or she has overseen a tradition of corruption among the many nonprofits supplied public {dollars} to handle the difficulty.”

Paul Webster, a Cicero Institute senior fellow and former government director of the LA Alliance for Human Rights, and journalist Jonathan Choe, a Discovery Institute senior fellow and former KOMO-TV reporter who has extensively lined homelessness, are set to testify Tuesday because the listening to strikes ahead with out Bass.

---

Obtain The California Submit App, comply with us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters