Va Lecia Adams Kellum resigned as CEO of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) on Friday. Kellum’s exit came just two years into her tenure.
Days before Kellum’s announcement, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 to pull its funding from LAHSA and create its own agency. A recent audit slammed the agency for a lack of oversight and mishandling of its contracts with outside vendors.
Kellum cited the recent vote by the Board of Supervisors as her reason for stepping down.
“With the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors implementing the 2020 Blue Ribbon recommendations, shifting key responsibilities from LAHSA to LA County, now is the right time for me to resign as CEO,” she said.
LAHSA has gone through three permanent CEOs in the past five years. Before her appointment to the agency, Kellum ran the St. Joseph’s Center, a local homeless services nonprofit. She found herself at the center of controversy earlier this year when it was revealed that she’d signed $2.1 million in contracts with an agency that her husband happens to work for.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued the following statement:
“Dr. Adams Kellum has saved thousands of lives in Los Angeles. She worked with my office to create Inside Safe – the first and only citywide program to resolve entire encampments and bring people inside. She tackled the challenges of the homelessness system – silos, services, accountability, cost – and despite knowing that LAHSA was broken, she answered the call of service to serve as CEO because she knows that above all else, we must work to save lives. Despite this broken system, while homelessness rises across the country, Los Angeles is bucking that trend – street homelessness declined for the first time in more than six years, and early reports show that this progress continues for a second year. This would not have been possible without Dr. Adams Kellum’s leadership and bold vision for what’s possible. She helped us move the needle to save lives, restore neighborhoods and show that homelessness can be solved. She is an agent of change. I thank her for her work and wish her the best in all that she will do moving forward."
Kellums will stay with the agency for 120 days to aid with the transition.