By Jose E. Navarro | The Navarro Report | September 24, 2026
LOS ANGELES, Calif. In its final funded year, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) advanced $2,790,732 to a Culver City nonprofit, Home At Last. Two audits had already warned that the agency could not reliably trace payments of exactly that kind. Last week, federal prosecutors charged the nonprofit’s founder, Michael Young, with wire fraud, alleging he diverted more than $7.5 million in public homelessness money. Young has not entered a plea, and the charge remains an allegation.
The alleged spending is striking: luxury travel, vintage-car restorations, a bingo hall, and more than $1 million for an Inglewood nightclub, according to prosecutors. Yet the more consequential question for taxpayers is not what one defendant allegedly bought. It is what public officials knew, and when.
The warnings
An advance is public money handed over before anyone confirms what it bought. It helps providers meet payroll quickly, but without verification it also invites abuse. That is the mechanism prosecutors say Young exploited, and the one auditors had flagged.
In November 2024, the county Auditor-Controller found that LAHSA had awarded $50.8 million in cash advances to providers since fiscal 2017-18 without agreements explaining when the money would return. Auditors could not verify roughly $5 million in advances to five providers. About half of the agency’s planned contract reviews included no method for confirming that services were delivered. Four months later, a court-ordered audit by Alvarez & Marsal found fragmented data systems across LAHSA, the city and the county, and could not determine what the city had spent creating shelter beds.
LAHSA rejected the recommendation to set repayment terms. Its then-chief executive told a federal judge the advances were startup money for the county’s Measure H sales tax, always intended to be recouped when that tax ended. By early 2025, the agency reported recovering about $13 million of the $50.8 million.
The money kept moving
Home At Last received more than $118 million in public funds since 2019. LAHSA alone paid it over $75 million, roughly 64 cents of every dollar the nonprofit collected. Even so, the agency advanced it another $2.79 million in 2025-26. By May 15, $602,507 remained unreturned. Six days later, the nonprofit announced it would close two shelters, putting 181 residents’ housing at risk: about $2,900 in unreturned advance money per person. LAHSA disputed the claim that delayed reimbursements were to blame.
LAHSA froze payments only after an IRS letter arrived in May 2026 saying agents had seized cash tied to Young. The essential, unanswered question is whether LAHSA, the city or the county detected the problem independently, or whether the first real warning came from federal investigators.
A pattern, not a person
Six people have been arrested in federal Los Angeles homelessness-fraud cases over the past year, involving different agencies and funding streams. Only one, Alexander Soofer, has agreed to plead guilty; prosecutors say he fraudulently obtained $23 million. The others are accused, not convicted. LAHSA says it cooperated with investigators and that no agency personnel were implicated.
Internal oversight appears thin. LAist reported in July that LAHSA has completed no internal audits in years, and one begun two years ago, examining why $7 million in federal dollars went unspent, remained unreleased because management responses were months overdue. A 2022 review had found $3.5 million in federal grants left unused. Outside auditors also found that financial statements for the year ended June 2025 initially contained significant inaccuracies, at an agency that spent over $800 million.
The arithmetic
The alleged diversion equals roughly six cents of each dollar Home At Last received. That share is small enough to hide inside a large, poorly reconciled ledger, which is exactly why controls matter more than good intentions. It also equals what roughly 125,000 county households pay each year into the Measure A homelessness sales tax, at about $5 a month.
What comes next
The county’s new Department of Homeless Services and Housing, launched January 1 with an $843 million budget, now administers more than 230 contracts covering over 6,500 interim beds. In February, Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Kathryn Barger won approval of a motion to tighten contract oversight, citing LAHSA’s audit history. A motion is not a control. Voters deserve public answers to three questions: Do cash advances still exist under the new department? Who verifies delivery before money moves? And when will audit findings be published in full?
Measure A is expected to generate about $1 billion annually. Angelenos have paid the tax. They are entitled to see the receipts.
Sources: LA County Auditor-Controller LAHSA review (Nov. 2024); Westside Current (Sept. 18, 2026); LAist (July 2026); federal court filings in LA Alliance for Human Rights v. City of Los Angeles; U.S. Department of Justice announcements.
Human-Directed AI Journalism: Jose E. Navarro selected the topic, directed the research and framing, edited, and approved this article. AI assisted with research and drafting.