Justin Szlasa Found L.A.'s Wasted Homeless Money. Demoting Him Was Indefensible.

The full commission approved the change; the new commission chair, Stephanie Graves, called the decision her prerogative and hasn't explained further.

Justin Szlasa visited an approved camping site the morning his commission was set to renew the contract for it. The lot held half the capacity the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority had been paying a nonprofit to provide, and had for over a year, LAist reported, which also reported that a federal judge, David O. Carter, later called the situation "obvious fraud." Last week Szlasa was removed as chair of LAHSA's audit committee. No reason has been given for it.

Here's what that oversight buys. At a newly built master-leased building, Szlasa told the outlet, he was told disabled tenants were being carried up and down stairs because the elevators were broken and nobody could say whose job the fix was. He asked LAHSA executives for an accounting of the leasing program and never got one. More than 250 of the publicly funded units — a third of them — later turned out to be sitting empty.

He's still on the three-person committee. He just can't set its agenda anymore, and that's the whole of it: the chair decides what gets scheduled and voted on, and oversees the internal auditors between the monthly meetings. A member can ask. The chair decides whether asking goes anywhere.

The strongest defense is a real one, and it's on the record. LAHSA Chief of Staff Paul Rubenstein said committee chairs turning over each year is routine. Stephanie Graves — an appointee of Mayor Karen Bass, and the new chair of the 10-member commission that recommended the change, which the full commission approved Friday — told LAist the call was her "prerogative," and added by text: "Szlasa continues to be on the Audit Committee and his insights are valuable." A Bass spokesperson said the assignments belong to the commission chair, subject to confirmation.

I'd take rotation as the answer if the record didn't undercut it twice. Rubenstein's own data, per LAist, shows at least one committee chair has stayed on a second consecutive year. And Graves hasn't given a reason, which is the part a routine rotation never needs to withhold.

Look at what the audit committee is in the middle of. KPMG, the outside accounting firm reviewing the agency, briefed commissioners. LAHSA has no easy way to trace what it pays its vendors, the firm said, per LAist. A years-long audit of the agency's failure to spend $7 million in federal grants isn't finished. A public records request Szlasa filed in February — asking whether LAHSA has covered one funder's bills with another funder's money, a practice auditors flagged in 2024 as a misuse of funds — was still unanswered six months later, he said, with the agency checking whether records exist.

Rick Cole, a former top deputy in the L.A. City Controller's office and a Pasadena City Council member, told LAist the removal is part of a cover-up of dysfunction at the agency. That's his characterization, and it's a heavy one. Mine is narrower and doesn't require reading anyone's mind: a body that quietly takes the gavel from its most persistent auditor, two months before an election and while its federal and city money is in question, has told you what it's prioritizing.

LAist reported that Graves served on the mayor's transition team, attended a Bass re-election finance committee meeting per a campaign disclosure, and runs a PR firm with taxpayer-funded contracts overseen by Bass and her appointees. None of that proves why she did this. It's why an explanation was worth giving.

Szlasa's replacement as audit chair is Charles Stringer, a Bass appointee, who hasn't responded to LAist's request for comment. The committee meets monthly, and Stringer now sets the agenda. The $7 million audit is either on it or it isn't.

Source: laist.com, retrieved September 5, 2026.