L.A. Mayor Bass Declines House Subcommittee Testimony on Homeless Agency Waste

The refusal leaves a $1 billion waste, fraud, and abuse inquiry without its most prominent local witness, extending a gap in congressional oversight of a federally funded program.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has declined a request to testify before a House subcommittee on September 15, 2026, citing scheduling conflicts, according to reporting by the New York Post. The hearing, organized by the House subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, is intended to examine approximately $1 billion in alleged waste, fraud, and abuse at the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA).

LAHSA is a joint powers authority created by the City and County of Los Angeles. It administers hundreds of millions of dollars in federal, state, and local funding each year to address homelessness across the region. Federal funds flowing through LAHSA include allocations from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Continuum of Care program, making the agency subject to federal oversight and congressional scrutiny.

The subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency operates under the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. Subcommittee hearings carry the authority to issue subpoenas under House rules if voluntary testimony is not provided, though it is not publicly confirmed whether the subcommittee has moved to compel Mayor Bass's appearance. The subcommittee's exact request letter and Bass's written response have not been made publicly available as of the publication of this article.

The $1 billion waste, fraud, and abuse figure cited by the subcommittee has not been independently verified in a single public audit document reviewed for this article. Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia released a September 2023 audit finding significant accounting deficiencies at LAHSA, and the Los Angeles County Auditor-Controller has issued separate findings. Whether the subcommittee's $1 billion figure draws from those audits, from federal Inspector General reports, or from other sources is not specified in publicly available subcommittee materials.

Mayor Bass took office in December 2022 and has made homelessness her administration's central policy priority, including declaring a state of emergency on her first day in office. The number of unhoused individuals counted in Los Angeles County in the 2023 point-in-time count was 75,518, a 9 percent increase from 2022, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority's own published data. The 2024 count recorded approximately 75,312, a marginal decrease. The 2025 count figures are not yet reflected in this report.

Congressional subcommittee hearings on local homelessness policy are not common. The mechanism connecting federal oversight to a city agency typically runs through HUD's monitoring of grantees and the HUD Office of Inspector General. A congressional subcommittee inquiry adds a separate layer of legislative branch scrutiny, which can precede or accompany OIG investigations but carries its own procedural track.

Bass is not the only municipal official whose homelessness spending has drawn federal attention. In 2023, the HUD OIG flagged concerns about financial controls in multiple Continuum of Care grantee jurisdictions nationwide. Whether LAHSA was among the specific jurisdictions named in those OIG reports is detailed in OIG publications available at oig.hud.gov.

No Republican-led city has faced an equivalent subcommittee hearing on homelessness spending during the current congressional session, based on publicly listed hearing schedules from the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability website. Whether the subcommittee has issued or plans to issue similar invitations to officials in other jurisdictions is not confirmed in publicly available records.

The subcommittee has not announced whether it will reschedule the hearing, call alternative witnesses, or pursue a subpoena. Mayor Bass's office had not issued a public statement on the matter beyond the refusal itself, as reported. A formal subpoena, if issued, would be recorded in congressional records and reportable through the House clerk's office.

What remains unknown is the precise documentary basis for the $1 billion waste figure, whether the subcommittee will compel testimony, and which other witnesses are scheduled to appear on September 15. Those facts would be revealed by the subcommittee's official witness list, any subpoena filings entered into the congressional record, and auditor reports formally submitted to the committee.