Front Page  »  

Prosecutors create fraud task force focused on homeless funding

April 8, 2025

By KAREN VELIE

A recently formed federal Homelessness Fraud and Corruption Task Force will investigate fraud, waste, abuse, and corruption involving funds allocated toward the eradication of homelessness in seven counties, including San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties, U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli announced today.

Despite spending billions of dollars tackling this issue, homelessness remains a crisis. Last month, an audit found that homeless services provided by the city and county of Los Angeles were “disjointed” and contained “poor data quality and integration” and lacked monitoring and financial controls.

“California has spent more than $24 billion over the past five years to address homelessness,” said U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli. “But officials have been unable to account for all the expenditures and outcomes, and the homeless crisis has only gotten worse.

“Taxpayers deserve answers for where and how their hard-earned money has been spent,” Essayli added. “If state and local officials cannot provide proper oversight and accountability, we will do it for them. If we discover any federal laws were violated, we will make arrests.”

The investigation will focus on the seven-county jurisdiction of the Central District of California. The district is home to approximately 20 million residents within the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura.

The total homeless population of the seven counties exceeds 95,000.

This task force will be comprised of federal prosecutors with assistance from the FBI, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Inspector General, and the IRS.

 


Loading...
Subjects:     
Related:


23 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Shutting down services with nothing setup to replace them isn’t “finding fraud and waste”. It’s just eliminating the funding so that it can go towards tax breaks for billionaires. People that actually need these services are going to suffer and everyone else is going to continue to suffer with the same problem(homeless people) as before because nothing is getting actually fixed! What a scam!


-22

I agree, perspective, but where does it say that the services are being shut down? Surely accountability and an audit can only help bring about the best possible service to the homeless.


11

The feds investigating the LAHSA, a joint LA City/County authority say $2 BILLION is unaccounted for. Like COVID relief money, there is no accountability and it may all be in Nigeria.


3

$24B over 5 years spent on 95k people. That’s $50,000 per person per year. Just hire them.


18

Re-read and try again… There are 95k homeless in those seven counties, not in all of California. Most recent number is 187, 084, and that’s probably a low estimate. 25k per person. These days basic necessities including housing cost a low of about 2k a month so… the math makes sense. No one wants to spend the money to solve the problem, thay just want it to dissappear for free lol


-8

Unfortunately, the more money they spend, the more the problem proliferates.


15

…and then there was the year that Grover Beach gave $100,000 of CDBG grant funds to Adam Hill for his wife to use housing the homeless. The City could never provide an accounting for those funds or an answer as to how many were housed, because no records were kept or provided.


11

$24 billion dollars later, and we have more homeless than ever, and more suddenly wealthy “homeless advocates” too.


Unless, of course, that was the democrat plan all along. Why should we doubt it?


23

Ah yes, waste and fraud. The catch-all phrase to rationalize the hollowing out of any government services that help Americans. The Trump Administration needs those a few dollars so they can transfer as much money as possible to tax cuts for the nation’s wealthiest individuals. Because, after all, that’s why those rich guys, like Musk, contributed money to Trump.


-61

$24 billion, is about $60,000 per homeless person in the state. I do not see any gold plated shopping carts, so the money certainly isn’t getting to the people who need it.


27

“government services” is key. Yes, local governments contract out everything from road work, water and sewer repair to janitorial services under contract managers. Who are the public contract managers for the NGO’s? Many high-paid NGO managers just had the right connections and needed a sweet job.


17

The homeless, addicts, children…any who are vulnerable in general become targets for those who figure out how to redirect funds from those in need to themselves. Why? Because they can’t fight back. And all the while, the real crooks are touting themselves as helping the vulnerable. Yeah, right.


8

Somewhere, Dee Torres-Hill is shredding errrr…I mean shedding a tear.


25

For sure, Grover. Sounds like you know what I know.


6

Hopefully they visit SLO County and audit anyone getting state, Fed, and private money, especially the “non-profit’s”.


61

Years ago, someone who was a deceased Assemblyman’s Ex girlfriends Ex husband Rhymes with BEE said that SHE received countless gift cards FOR the homeless shelter that she was involved in and spent them on her family, but since she was romantically involved with a powerful politician, it was no longer of interest. That person allegedly got away with multiple thousands of dollars that had been earmarked for local residents and that she used the cards for their own Christmas gifts and personal use. It’s embarrassing to think all you have to do is say “I did not” and well, there ya have it.


59

It’s about time! The Homeless-Industrial-Grant complex has spent billions of dollars with nothing to show for it but a handful of high salaries for nonprofit managers.


107

A lot more than a handful………


48

…meanwhile a certain SLO mayor bragged about purchasing an affordable housing unit in a well-known SLO development. She said it’s OK because she paid market value. I hope the audit looks into this as well.


16
1 2