OPINION:
Michael Young, a founder of Home At Last, an organization meant to provide housing and supportive services to people facing homelessness, diverted taxpayer dollars to fund a high-end nightclub, a luxury vacation to Tahiti, a gamblers’ den disguised as a bingo hall and vintage car restoration.
Donye Mitchell, CEO of The Big Blue Umbrella, another nonprofit created to help the homeless, used public funds as his personal piggy bank to post bail for domestic violence and assault charges, pay off his personal credit cards and fund his rent and a PlayStation subscription.
Lakiya Malone, an employee at Special Service for Groups, which provides housing and social services for the homeless, allegedly accepted more than $180,000 in bribes and kickbacks and generated “ghost” homeless participants in the program by using fabricated records and forged signatures to secure taxpayer money.
These are just three of the fraudsters who were charged this week by the Trump administration for siphoning off public funds from Los Angeles homeless relief programs to pay for their own lavish lifestyles.
“California has spent over $24 billion in recent years to combat homelessness with little to show for it — homelessness is actually up and not down,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney for Central California Bill Essayli said at a Wednesday press conference announcing the crackdown. “Many taxpayers have been asking, ’Where did the money go?’”
Since January 2025, the Trump administration’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud has uncovered $245.7 billion in fraud across various federal benefit and entitlement programs, stopped $62.9 billion in suspicious or bogus payments and recovered $59.1 billion in taxpayer money through indictments, settlements and civil monetary penalties.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office estimates that the federal government loses between $233 billion and $521 billion to fraud each year, so the task force has its work cut out for it.
Medicaid fraud has been the largest category uncovered by the task force, with the program withholding $2 billion in federal payments to California and nearly $260 million to Minnesota.
Yet state and local officials do not seem to care about the waste of taxpayer money, with blue states providing little to no assistance in the federal fraud effort.
Mr. Essayli has criticized California officials for failing to provide proper oversight or accountability over massive public benefit expenditures, especially within healthcare and homeless services in the Los Angeles region. Notably, at his press conference Wednesday, no Democratic lawmaker was in attendance to celebrate the win.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass stepped down from the governing board of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the organization through which federal funds were being funneled, on Sept. 9.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development has suspended $220 million in annual payments to the Los Angeles Continuum of Care — including more than $77 million to LAHSA directly — pending the outcome of a fraud investigation, citing more than a decade of noncompliance, including conflicts of interest and multiple failed audits.
Ms. Bass cited time constraints and her new role as chair of the L.A. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority as reasons for her departure from LAHSA.
Surely it had nothing to do with her abysmal record at the agency. Homelessness has risen 3.4% in Los Angeles this year, despite the city and county spending about $3 billion annually to resolve the issue. Nor could it be related to the federal government’s crackdown on Ms. Bass’ mismanagement at LAHSA, as witnessed at this week’s press conference.
As Mr. Essayli has noted, Los Angeles County has more than 75,000 homeless individuals — with more than 45,000 living directly on the streets — and an average of six unhoused residents dying every night. Instead of holding the agencies and nonprofits charged with resolving the issue accountable, Ms. Bass has enabled their fraud by disregarding it.
“What we’ve done here is say that no fraud is too small,” Vice President J.D. Vance said in Kansas City, Missouri, on Monday, announcing the suspension of 870,000 U.S. borrowers tied to $39 billion in suspected pandemic emergency fraud.
“If you tried to steal money from the American taxpayer, if you took funds that ought by right have gone to American small businesses or American workers, not only are we going to cut you off, but we’re going to prosecute you,” he said.
This week, his Task Force to Eliminate Fraud delivered results.
• Kelly Sadler is the commentary editor at The Washington Times.
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