Add The California Post on Google Members of Congress have torn into Karen Bass for swerving a grilling over $1 billion in federal homeless funding.
Tim Burchett, Nancy Mace and Lauren Boebert hauled the Los Angeles mayor over the coals after she dodged a committee hearing Tuesday after saying she was “busy.”
Bass revealed late Monday she was instead heading to the Pacific Palisades to attend a groundbreaking event for a community project in the fire gutted enclave.
She was torn apart during the deadly wildfires last year when she opted to go on a diplomatic trip to Ghana while the blaze spread.
Bass was earlier this month summoned to DC to answer questions about alleged “waste, fraud and abuse” inside Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which she was on the board of until last week.
The subcommittee claims she has not handed over all the documents related to the homeless agency and on Tuesday held the hearing without her.
Meanwhile Tuesday embattled LAHSA suddenly pulled its request for the federal funding discussed at the hearing.
At the meeting, Subcommittee Chairman Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, opened by saying billions spent fighting homelessness have failed to fix the crisis.
He said: “Los Angeles is the epicenter of America’s homelessness.”
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Burchett even zeroed in on LAHSA’s downtown digs, pointing to amenities at its Wilshire Boulevard high-rise that The Post previously reported include access to a private helipad and chauffeured luxury cars.
“This outfit is housed in a luxury high rise in downtown LA with a private helipad and Mercedes-Maybach car service for tenants,” Burchett said.
“If you don’t know Maybach, it’s the high end of the Mercedes brand,” he added. Burchett also zeroed in on Bass.
The mayor appointed herself to LAHSA’s governing commission in 2023 as part of her push to overhaul the city’s homelessness response. She stepped down last week after being invited to testify.
“Finally, just last week, after I invited her to appear at this hearing, Mayor Bass suddenly removed herself from the LAHSA board,” Burchett said.
“Mayor Bass seems intent on evading accountability, but she knows we will not let her off the hook.”
Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert also criticized Bass for skipping the hearing, saying her absence showed “contempt,” rather than a scheduling conflict.
South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace piled on. “It is shameful the mayor didn’t show up today,” Mace said.
Mace also invoked Bass’ absence from LA during the Palisades Fire, saying no one should be surprised because the mayor “didn’t show up when people’s homes were burning.”
Lawmakers then put LA’s street crisis front and center.
Burchett played video shot by journalist Jonathan Choe on Skid Row showing harm-reduction supplies being handed out, then held up one of the packets during the hearing.
“I just found a crack pipe in there, the first one I’ve ever held,” Burchett said.
Choe, who later testified before the panel, displayed one of the kits and walked lawmakers through its contents, including a meth pipe, needles, fentanyl test strips, a tourniquet and cookers.
Paul Webster, a senior fellow for Senior Fellow for Cicero Institute, testified that LA has received roughly $2 billion in federal homelessness funding since 2005.
Yet overall homelessness has doubled since 2009 and unsheltered homelessness has climbed 130%, Webster testified.
“There is more money than ever before, more capacity than ever before, and more and sicker people on the streets than ever before,” he said.
In a statement timed to come out when the committee met, Bass lashed out and tried to paint the hearing as an attack on the city, instead of just her.
She said: “Let’s call this what it is: the latest attack on Los Angeles by the Trump Administration and his allies in Congress.
“This Administration tried to strip Los Angeles of the funding that helps us get people off the street, a federal judge stopped them. They lost in court, so now they’re staging a show instead.”
She added: “I don’t run LAHSA. It’s a joint city-county agency, and I was the first mayor in history to sit on its board.”
The committee adjourned Tuesday after two hours. Members now have five legislative days to submit additional questions to witnesses for the record.
