Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Appoints Former LA City Attorney as Interim Chief

Gita O’Neill, an assistant Los Angeles City attorney who handles homelessness policy, was appointed Friday as the new interim chief executive of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

The LAHSA Commission voted 7-1 to confirm O’Neill’s nomination. The agency is expected to negotiate a 12-month contract with O’Neill to lead the joint city-county homeless agency during a time when the organization is set to lose $300 million in funding and reduce its staff.

“I am honored to step in to the role of interim CEO for LAHSA at such a critical juncture,” O’Neill said in a statement. “Increasing trust in LAHSA hinges on our ongoing commitment to transparency, particularly in LAHSA’s core function of contracting.”

O’Neill’s appointment is effect August 26. As the L.A. City Attorney’s first director of homeless policies and strategies, O’Neill aided in the “A Bridge Home” initiative, the first citywide shelter system. She also supported emergency operations during the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

The current CEO, Va Lecia Adams Kellum, will step down from the position Friday after two and half years at the helm. She announced her resignation shortly after the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted in March to establish a new homelessness department.

O’Neill would receive a monthly base salary of $30,833.33, or approximately $370,000 a year — a reduction compared to Adams Kellum’s base salary of $430,000 a year.

Commission members Wendy Gruel, Amy Perkins, Tamela Omoto-Frias, Amber Sheikh, Justin Szlasa and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass voted in favor of O’Neill. Commissioner Tanisha Saunders was the lone “no” vote while members Yasmine-Imani McMorrin and Margarita Lares were absent during the vote.

The 10-member LAHSA Commission oversees the joint city-county homelessness agency. Members have the authority to make budgetary, funding, planning and program policies.

Adam Smith, an organizer with Los Angeles Community Action Network in Skid Row, expressed concern on behalf of his organization about O’Neill.

He described the appointment as leaning LAHSA further away from its charge of meaningfully addressing homelessness.

“Everyone knows and every study supports the fact that the solution to houselessness in Los Angeles and across the country is housing,” Smith said. “LAHSA has previously understood that the root causes of houselessness are housing affordability, housing availability and poverty.”

“The community is rightly concerned that LAHSA continues to stray away from this and policy must be formed from this fact, and not the narratives that individualized houseless people are undeserving,” he added.

Calvin Moss, a Los Angeles resident, who gave comment via teleconference, criticized the agency for setting the executive’s salary at about $370,000 a year. He called it “obscene.”

Catherine King, a 40-year resident of Venice, who said she previously worked on homelessness issues in her area, suggested to the commission that LAHSA does “not need a prosecutor to head it.”

Meanwhile, Adams Kellum gave her closing remarks as her time as LAHSA’s leader came to a close.

“Just over two years ago, I stepped into this role with a clear purpose to drive transformative change and confront the humanitarian crisis of homelessness in our community,” Adams Kellum said. “This was never just a job for me. It has always been a deeply personal mission.”

Adams Kellum submitted her resignation to the commission shortly after county leaders implemented a recommendation from the 2020 Blue Ribbon Commission on Homelessness that called for shifting key responsibilities from the agency to a centralized department.

Under her leadership, the agency touted a reduction in unsheltered homelessness for a second year in a row.

The annual point-in-time homeless count showed there was a 4% decrease in homeless people across the county, while in the city of Los Angeles, there was a 3.4% drop.

The new county homelessness department is expected to be in place by Jan. 1, with Measure A — the 2024 half-cent tax to fund homelessness and housing efforts — funding pulled from LAHSA and transferred to the county entity by July 1, 2026.

LAHSA 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.

“We addressed audit findings directly. We strengthened our re-housing efforts and took on tough truths with courage and clarity,” Adams Kellum said in her remarks. “Real lasting change takes time, especially when confronting issues that have persisted for decades.”

Those audits have found that the agency provided dollars to nonprofit service providers in past years without formal agreements to determine how and when the funds would be repaid. LAHSA has taken steps to recoup that money.

A court-ordered audit found that the agency made it impossible to accurately track spending or the performance outcomes of its vendors. The agency has made a commitment to improve data tracking, and has released tools on its website to do so.

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 — in which she has denied any wrongdoing.

LAHSA officials have disputed the findings of these audits and urged officials to continue their partnership.

The agency contracted Norton Rose Fullbright as outside counsel in March to conduct an independent review of allegations.

“Norton Rose Fullbright concluded its three-month review and determined that (Upward Bound House) was already a LAHSA subcontractor, and specifically for U.S. Housing and Urban Development Continuum of Care programs, before Dr. Adams Kellum became LAHSA’s CEO,” a report from Fullbright reads.

Adams Kellum’s husband, Edward Kellum, serves as Upward Bound House’s director of operations and compliance.

Gruel and Mayor Bass thanked Adams Kellum for her leadership.

The mayor went on to defend Adams Kellum, noting that the outgoing CEO came from the nonprofit sector and entered the “political process,” where she was placed “under a microscope.”

“You were expected to solve a problem that has been around for four decades that I certainly recall, and you didn’t do it. You didn’t do it in a couple of years and so the attacks began,” Bass said.

“I hope you continue to work in this space and know that there’s a lot of people around who know about your contributions, and will continue to fight for your reputation that unfortunately was maligned,” Bass added.