It’s like the would-be date who declines, citing a need to wash her hair.
Karen Bass has told a powerful congressional panel that she can’t testify next week about homelessness failures in her city, because, well, she’s busy.
The mayor spurned a request to appear Sept. 15 before the House subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency; the hearing is due to probe $1 billion in alleged waste, fraud and abuse at the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.
In effect, Bass told the panel: Nah; it wasn’t me.
This is what running from accountability looks like.
Bass is well aware that LAHSA, Los Angeles’ central homeless agency, is an epic failure.
LA County all but shunned the organization in 2025, and the federal government is investigating LAHSA for alleged financial mismanagement.
The agency, tasked with serving Angelenos who live in tent squalor, has headquarters in a luxe office towerthat caters to LA’s super-rich –– a building with perks like a helipad and Maybach car service.
And this is a crew that gets 73% of its funding from city taxpayers –– even after Bass & Co. vowed yet failed to study alternatives.
Why does the city led by Bass keep pouring taxpayers’ money, by the hundreds of millions, into apparent fraud and failure?
Clearly, she’d rather not say.
A letter from Bass’ attorneys to the DOGE subcommittee read in part:
“LAHSA has its own executive leadership team and staff who are responsible for day-to-day operations, budget and administration. The Mayor does not control LAHSA’s operation, budget, or administration.”
Control it, perhaps not.
But oversight? That’s under Bass’ remit.
LA’s mayor is responsible for appointing (subject to City Council approval) five of the 10 commissioners in charge of LAHSA, with the county seating the other half.
Think of the commission like a board of directors: steering the ship and ostensibly providing oversight while administrators mind the details.
Bass has picked three of five city-selected commissioners now presiding over the LAHSA mess –– including the commission’s chair, Stephanie Graves.
Another of the three Bass appointees is none other than … Bass herself.
So the suggestion that Bass has few fingerprints on this sordid operation is little more than fanciful politics.
Let’s be real: When it comes to the DOGE hearing, Bass just doesn’t want to go.
She’s in a tough reelection fight, she’s seen other public officials embarrass themselves on Capitol Hill, and she’d rather take the heat for avoidance than risk a stumble while the cameras roll.
Besides, she has no good defense for her failed record on homelessness.
Per the latest official count, homelessness in LA climbed 4.3% in the past year. And Bass’ signature program, Inside Safe, has been a bust. Turns out, prodding addicts into hotel rooms –– no sobriety required –– doesn’t address the causes of homelessness.
It’s a record she can’t credibly defend.
The mayor’s challenger in the Nov. 3 election, Councilwoman Nithya Raman, has an equally dismal record on homelessness. Raman, too, clings to the “housing first” myth, as if taxpayer-funded housing is a magical answer to chronic substance abuse.
And Raman chaired the city’s Housing and Homelessness Committee for about three years –– ineptly. She, too, owns LA’s homelessness failure, centered on piping billions in taxpayer dollars to nonprofits and other organizations that entrench the problem to keep the money flowing.
Bass, though, is the city’s top executive.
And she’s channeling Truman in reverse.
Bass would do better to take responsibility –– and chart a new course for city homelessness policy.
That would be better than skirting accountability, hiding from Congress … and trying to wash the failure from her hair.
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