L.A.'s homeless agency flagged a nonprofit as high-risk. It approved $3.5 million more, LAist reports.

At least $3.5 million in taxpayer contracts went to a nonprofit that Los Angeles' homeless services agency had formally labeled “High-Risk.” Top executives at the agency approved the deals across several months of 2024. The approvals appear in a review of more than 7,000 pages of public records first reported by LAist on August 26, 2026.

Spokespeople for the agency have not answered whether its then-CEO or its governing commissioners were told about the compliance concerns before the money was awarded, the outlet reported.

The money at issue was meant to shelter and feed people living outside in Los Angeles. Who knew what, and when, decides whether this was one bad vendor or a system that could not see one.

Alex Soofer, who led the now-defunct nonprofit Abundant Blessings, was charged with fraud earlier in 2026. The charge, as prosecutors put it: homelessness money routed through the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority — LAHSA — to that nonprofit and to his for-profit company, Abundant Blessings From Above, and $10 million or more of it kept.

Two instruments made that possible, prosecutors say: a board that did not exist, and a construction firm that built nothing. What the money bought, LAist reported, was a Westwood house at $7 million, a Range Rover, private school tuition and travel by private jet. Soofer has pleaded not guilty. He declined to comment to LAist, citing the ongoing case.

The May 2024 warning, then the vote

The agency's two senior compliance officers sent Soofer a delinquency notice on May 6, 2024. It labelled Abundant Blessings “High-Risk” and set out significant concerns, according to records obtained by LAist. Eighteen days later, the LAHSA Commission voted to authorize contract renewals to the same group. The May 24, 2024 vote covered $2.6 million.

The staff recommendation did not note the known concerns, and no one raised them during the discussion, per the meeting video reviewed by the outlet.

Two weeks after that vote, on June 7, 2024, the direction came from the mayor's office: put city money behind one more LAHSA deal with the same group, this one for Inside Safe, the motel-based program that is Mayor Karen Bass' signature homelessness effort. The contract was worth about $250,000. It covered roughly six weeks of security, welfare checks and meals at two motels in El Sereno and Boyle Heights, and was finalized later that month.

A spokesperson for Bass told LAist the mayor and her staff were “absolutely not” aware of any potential misconduct at the time.

More flags, more contracts

In mid-July 2024, City Controller Kenneth Mejia's office told LAHSA it was opening a fraud investigation into the nonprofit, LAist reported. A site visit had found people at the two motels were being served almost entirely instant ramen. On July 30, 2024, LAHSA emailed the group a compliance report citing a misallocation of about $700,000.

Two weeks of August 2024 produced five more deals with the same group, new contracts and renewals both, worth over $3 million between them — per a list the outlet obtained.

Auditors later fixed the date the agency held enough to suspect a federal crime had been committed: August 23, 2024. The agency did not disclose that to federal housing officials until April 25, 2025, about eight months later. The audit states that was a violation of federal law. LAHSA's management wrote that it did not disagree with the findings. LAHSA canceled the contracts in October 2024.

What was paid, and what is not known

LAHSA paid the nonprofit $1.5 million directly after the “High-Risk” letter, about $771,000 of it after the credible-evidence date, records show. It approved another $447,000 to Soofer's for-profit company as a subcontractor. Those subcontractor approvals ran from late August 2024 to January 2025.

In all, the nonprofit received $5 million in direct LAHSA contracts starting in 2023, according to LAHSA data. The for-profit received more than $17 million as a subcontractor to another nonprofit starting in 2018, according to LAHSA data and prosecutors.

The two entities' names differ by three words. In November 2025, Soofer and the nonprofit agreed to pay LAHSA $1.25 million. Both sides denied fault and agreed not to disparage each other.

A LAHSA spokesperson, Ahmad Chapman, said in a statement: “At the time, LAHSA's structure hindered internal communications regarding Abundant Blessings, leading to an errant contract recommendation.”

Janine Trejo, LAHSA's chief financial officer during the 2024 approvals, and Va Lecia Adams Kellum, its CEO at the time, did not respond to LAist's requests for comment. The posting for her job asked for a degree in accounting, finance or management, with an MBA or a CPA on top of it. Trejo's résumé lists a bachelor's in cultural anthropology, per LAist's review of agency records.

LAist's request for the fifth August 2024 contract remains outstanding.

Source: laist.com, retrieved August 27, 2026.