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iAUDIT! - On Tuesday afternoon, LAist published an article showing how LAHSA's CEO, Dr. Va Lecia Adams Kellum, has been approving contracts awarded to her husband's nonprofit organization. Nick Gerda at LAIst found contracts Adams Kellum signed, totaling at least $4.3 million, to her husband's nonprofit, Upward Bound House. In an earlier article, Adams Kellum claimed she recused herself from any contract decisions about the NPO, but her signature is on the contract documents, and Commission meeting records show she was the designated contract administrator. It’s hard to overstate how serious a breach of ethics this is. She is personally overseeing contracts benefiting her spouse, after claiming she recused herself from involvement with the organization.
This fiasco also featured the usual cast of characters trying to rationalize what should be a breach of ethics serious enough to end Adams Kellum’s tenure:
- Paul Rubenstein, LAHSA's PR officer, who said Adams Kellum “mistakenly” signed the contracts. If that’s true, Adams Kellum is so incompetent and/or inattentive, she didn't know what she was signing. If it’s not true, she knew what she was doing and intentionally broke ethics rules, as well as misleading Gerda when she said she’d recused herself from approving Upward Bound House’s contracts. It also begs the question of who sent her the contracts for signature, knowing her husband works for the nonprofit. In typical LAHSA style, Rubenstein denied there was an ethical breach, but then said LAHSA was doing more ethics training.
- Lyndsey Horvath, ever the guardian of the status quo and stalwart defender of failed programs, promising to have a "serious discussion" about this at the next LAHSA Board meeting. With any luck, we may see a strongly worded memo come from the Board.
- Nithya Raman, who said she talked to LAHSA's Board chair and was assured conflict of interest policies would be enforced from now on. Given how egregious this incident is, I think I'd press a little harder than a phone call. And the point is what to do about the ethics breach that has been occurring, not promises for future fixes.
- Mayor Bass, who as usual claims to not know anything about anything, even though she and Adams Kellum are close personally and one of Bass' daughters works for St. Joseph Center, the nonprofit Adams Kellum ran before taking the LAHSA job. Let’s not forget the mayor appointed herself to LAHSA’s Board to increase accountability. Now is her chance to prove it.
- The person who I'm really disappointed with is Wendy Greuel, LAHSA's Board Chair and former LA City Controller. When she was Controller, she and her staff would never have tolerated this kind of ethics violation. I don't know how she missed it and why she isn't commenting on it.
Only Councilmember Rodriguez had the integrity to call it out for what it is, saying the conflict is "absolutely unacceptable". Three Commission members were not on the Board when contracting with Upward Bousn House became an issue in August 2023: Supervisors Barger and Horvath, and its newest member, Justin Szala, who replaced Barger after the first of this year.
Tuesday’s article also highlights another questionable practice common in homelessness programs: issuing an initial contract and then adding to it via addenda. As Gerda describes, Adams Kellum signed three contracts worth $2.1 million and then approved two amendments totaling another $2.2 million. These amendments have become routine in homelessness contracting, adding millions of dollars to nonprofits’ contracts with no bidding and little oversight.
In addition to approving contracts for Upward Bound House, Adams Kellum spoke with Upward Bound House’s CEO about complaints regarding its lack of performance. As I noted in a column about the first LAist article, Edward Kellum is Upward Bound House’s Director of Operations and Compliance, and his job duties include monitoring the organization’s performance metrics. That raises serious questions about why Dr. Adams Kellum would intervene in a performance complaint regarding her husband’s agency. As I noted in the earlier column, how would you like to be a LAHSA contract manager, and have to deal with poor performance, knowing your CEO has close personal ties to your contractor? Apparently, we now know the answer; Adams Kellum did not hesitate to intervene when such an issue came up.
Another thing to consider. According to LA County’s Auditor/Controller, LAHSA’s contract management lacks basic controls. If it’s true Adams Kellum signed the contracts “by accident”, how many more contracts have been signed and how many more payments have been made “by accident”?
After I saw LAist’s story, I contacted a friend who has held a variety of municipal positions, including City Manager and Finance Director. She and I agreed any manager who signed contracts benefitting a family member’s business would be immediately dismissed.
I and other critics of current homelessness programs expressed grave concerns about the use of Measure A revenue. Voters were assured the new funds would be subject to strict oversight. Its bad enough Dr. Adams Kellum has been writing checks to her former employer, St. Joseph Center. Now it has been revealed she’s been paying her husband’s nonprofit with the LAHSA Commission’s knowledge and approval. How can the public have any faith the hundreds of millions in Measure A money will be used responsibly when the head of LA’s largest homeless agency uses its budget to steer funds to favored organizations and family members?
(Tim Campbell is a resident of Westchester who spent a career in the public service and managed a municipal performance audit program. He focuses on outcomes instead of process in his iAUDIT! column for CityWatchLA.)
