Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told a House subcommittee she won’t show up to answer questions about more than $1 billion in federal homelessness money that flowed through a city agency now under federal investigation for fraud.
Story Snapshot
- A House subcommittee summoned Bass to testify September 15 about alleged waste and fraud in Los Angeles homelessness spending.
- Bass’s attorney said she has a scheduling conflict and cannot attend that date.
- Her office says the city is still handing over records Congress requested.
- The federal housing department already cut off funding to the local homelessness agency in June after finding mismanagement and conflicts of interest.
House Panel Demands Answers on $1 Billion
The House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, led by Chairman Tim Burchett, sent Bass a letter on September 3 asking her to testify at a public hearing and turn over documents tied to contracting and grant-making at the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA. Burchett’s committee says it’s investigating whether federal taxpayer dollars were funneled to nonprofits without proper oversight.
LAHSA has received well over $1 billion in federal money since 2021 to fight homelessness in Los Angeles. Lawmakers say they want to know what city officials knew about how that money was spent, and whether anyone in charge ignored warning signs of fraud before Congress got involved.
Mayor’s Office Cites Scheduling Conflict
Bass’s attorney at City Hall, David Michaelson, told Burchett in a letter that the mayor would not be available on September 15. A spokesperson for Bass said the mayor is “not available on that date,” according to her legal counsel, but stopped short of offering an alternate date to testify. Her office says the city continues cooperating with the committee’s request for records, even without a promise of live testimony.
LAHSA itself has pushed back hard on the fraud claims driving the investigation. The agency says it welcomes outside audits and insists it has found no proof of fraud or corruption within its own operations. Democrats and Bass allies have gone further, calling the whole inquiry a partisan attack aimed at justifying cuts to homelessness funding rather than a genuine effort to fix problems.
Federal Housing Officials Already Pulled the Plug
This fight didn’t start with the House letter. The Department of Housing and Urban Development suspended all federal funding to LAHSA back in June, citing an inspector general investigation into what officials called chronic financial mismanagement and weak safeguards against conflicts of interest. That freeze came months before Congress got involved, meaning federal regulators had already flagged serious problems with how the agency handled taxpayer money.
Bass has publicly said her administration has “zero tolerance for corruption” and is working with federal prosecutors to hold anyone who committed fraud accountable. That statement, made before the House summons, shows the mayor has acknowledged concerns about LAHSA even as her office now resists appearing before Congress to answer for those same concerns in person.
Why This Fight Matters Beyond Los Angeles
Homelessness money disputes like this one keep repeating across the country because cities often route federal dollars through semi-independent agencies with murky lines of accountability. When something goes wrong, it becomes hard to tell who’s actually responsible: the mayor, the city council, the agency board, or federal regulators who approved the grants in the first place. That confusion makes it easy for one side to cry mismanagement and the other to cry politics.
For everyday taxpayers, both on the left and right, the bigger question is simpler than the partisan back-and-forth suggests. More than $1 billion went to fight homelessness in one city, and encampments remain a visible daily problem on Los Angeles streets. Whether the mayor testifies in person or not, voters are left wondering where the money actually went and who, if anyone, will be held accountable for it.
🚨 NEW CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION
A House Oversight subcommittee has opened an investigation into the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s handling of federal homelessness funding.
Chairman Tim Burchett is demanding records from Mayor Karen Bass by September 14 and…
— FreedomFire1776 (@FreedomFire1776) September 3, 2026
Burchett’s subcommittee has not announced whether it will subpoena Bass or reschedule the hearing after her office declined the September 15 date. Congress does have legal tools to compel testimony from local officials who refuse to appear, though using them against a sitting big-city mayor would mark an unusual escalation in this kind of federal oversight fight.
Sources:
abc7.com, oversight.house.gov, nypost.com, latimes.com, youtube.com, realtor.com
