Los Angeles County has a new homeless czar.

Sarah Mahin was appointed as the first director to head the new county Department of Homeless Services and Housing by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, July 8.

She will earn an annual salary of $375,000, effective on the same day of her appointment, according to the motion approved by the board by a 5-0 vote.

Mahin has experience working in agencies dedicated to helping the unhoused find housing and support services.

“I’m thrilled to welcome Sarah Mahin as director of our new county Department of Homeless Services and Housing,” said Supervisor Lindsey P. Horvath. “She’s exactly who we need, ready to hit the ground running with the urgency this moment demands.”

For the past six years, Mahin worked at the county’s Department of Health Services (DHS) where she directed the department of Housing for Health, a countywide program with a budget of $670 million that oversaw 600 positions including contract employees and worked with community-based organizations.

The new county department for homeless, established on April 1, was part of a major break with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), a joint-powers agency with L.A. city and the county. For the last few years, LAHSA had been plagued with audits that found poor bookkeeping that included an inability to pay contractors and not being able to keep track of open beds.

The L.A. County Department of Homeless Services is responsible for $1 billion in annual taxpayer funds emanating from the new county homeless services initiative Measure A, a half-cent sales tax passed by voters in November 2024. It replaced Measure H, the one-quarter cent homeless services sales tax. New tax revenues from Measure A began April 1.

“This is a moment to tackle our homelessness crisis in a new and innovative way,” said Supervisor Janice Hahn.

The new county department would stop sending $350 million to LAHSA annually, and instead will use those funds to seed its own department. Also, the new county department would be directly responsible for spending Measure A dollars.

A series of audits over the past few years have raised significant questions about LAHSA’s handling of taxpayer funds. In November, the Los Angeles County auditor-controller reported that LAHSA, as of July 2024, had only recovered 5% of the $50 million in cash advances issued to its partners since 2017 due to its failure to establish formal agreements determining “how and when” those advances should be repaid.

The agency was unable to provide adequate supporting documents for approximately $5 million of the advances, according to the audit. Other payments to its partners were made excessively late, or improperly paid out using the wrong funding sources, the report said.

In December, L.A. City Controller Kenneth Mejia, in an audit of the city of Los Angeles’ interim housing programs, found that LAHSA “does not have a formal process in place to regularly review the performance of providers” or to “hold underperforming service providers accountable.” The review found that fewer than 20% of people in the city’s interim housing programs ended up in permanent housing. An average of one-in-four interim beds went unused, at a cost of $218 million to taxpayers, over the five-year period reviewed, according to the report.

The split between the two agencies that resulted in the county taking the reins was spearheaded by Supervisor Horvath, who led the effort to create an independent homeless agency governed by the five-member Board of Supervisors, often over the objections of members of the L.A. City Council and Mayor Karen Bass, who warned that the plan would disrupt progress and worsen the homelessness crisis. Bass and City Councilmember Nithya Raman sent a letter to the county in April repeating their concerns.

Under the new system, funding would be redirected from LAHSA to the new county department. LAHSA employees would also get first shot at working at the new county department and LAHSA would continue providing street services and conducting the annual Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count.

In March, the Board of Supervisors approved its homeless funding plan, which allocated $656 million from Measure A, $209 million in unspent Measure H funding and $42.6 million in state grants.

Last year the homeless count reached 75,312 in Los Angeles County.

Ironically, Mahin spent time as director of policy and systems at LAHSA. The county motion said Mahin was responsible for “leading systems change” and “coordinating services across hundreds of organizations and multiple county and city departments” — changes that auditors and many others felt were needed at the joint-powers agency.