Q&A with Dr. Va Lecia Adams Kellum (Part 2)

Dr. Va Lecia Adams Kellum is the CEO of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), the lead agency for the HUD-funded Los Angeles Continuum of Care. She coordinates and manages federal, state, county, and city funds for programs providing shelter, housing, and services to people experiencing homelessness. Immediately before joining LAHSA, Dr. Adams Kellum spent a month consulting with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass to shape the Inside Safe program.

Dr. Adams Kellum is perhaps best known for her time as President and CEO of St. Joseph Center, a social service organization offering outreach & engagement, housing, mental health, and education & vocational programs across Los Angeles County. The Center is a trailblazer in deploying integrated, multidisciplinary teams to help the most vulnerable homeless individuals obtain and maintain stable housing. Under her leadership, St. Joseph Center nearly quadrupled its staff, expanded its services, and broadened its geographic reach, becoming a recognized leader in homeless services throughout LA County.

Dr. Adams Kellum holds a gubernatorial appointment with the California Department of Housing and Community Development’s No Place Like Home Program Advisory Committee. She has also served on and continues to support the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Ad Hoc Committee on Black People Experiencing Homelessness under the newly established Anti-Racism, Diversity, and Inclusion (ARDI) initiative, as well as the National Alliance to End Homelessness’ Race Equity Network. She currently sits on the California Policy Lab Advisory Board and the Board of Trustees for Mount Saint Mary’s University. Born and raised in Southern California, she received her B.A. from the University of Southern California and earned an M.A. from Ball State University before completing her Ph.D. at Stanford University.

Belinda Juran/Paige Warren: The last time we spoke in May of 2023, you had recently joined Mayor Bass’ administration as the CEO of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA). You were actively working on the administration’s goal of rehousing 17,000 people during her 1st year in office. Did you meet the goal?

Dr. Va Lecia Adams Kellum: We exceeded the goal. Mayor Bass and the board of supervisors called for a state of emergency to focus on unsheltered homelessness, and we brought over 21,000 people inside in 2023. A wonderful achievement that shows we can make things happen when we work together.

But there is another success in these numbers. We also experienced an increase in the total number of people transitioning to permanent housing – from 22,540 in 2022 to 27,300 in 2023. The Inside Safe model, which I helped develop with the Mayor, focuses on getting people inside quickly by using available resources, which is often a motel room. But a hotel is not the end goal. We don't end homelessness by putting people in motels. We end homelessness by getting people into permanent housing.

Sometimes I think we get caught up in binary “either/or” thinking – that it's one or the other. But we must do both. We shouldn't leave unhoused people waiting in a tent while we're building permanent housing. We immediately house the unhoused while also advancing the parallel process of building or securing permanent housing. The data shows that both things are happening.

But we try to be very careful in how we talk about the promising results we’re seeing. We’ve still got over 45,000 people on the streets of Los Angeles, which is nothing to celebrate.

Juran/Warren: What did you learn from the results of the first year?

Adams Kellum: The importance of integration and coordination. Given my background as the CEO of St. Joseph’s Center. I naturally bring the lens of the service provider to this work. At St. Joseph Center, we would always ask for more coordination to ensure that we were rowing in the same direction. Having now worked at LAHSA over the course of a year, I realize how much of a challenge it can be to coordinate efforts that result in increased housing outcomes because we simply don't have the resources. That said, the feeling of us rowing in the same direction is profound, and the idea of operationalizing this notion of locked arms is powerful. That’s not to say there isn't a little movement to the left or right here and there, but we are moving as best we can in the same direction. Something about locking arms also shows that we are creating resistance against a challenge: we are working together against the same thing, which is homelessness.

Juran/Warren: The housing market is tight and unaffordable in Los Angeles. Like in many large cities, COVID-19 tenant protections also expired. How has this increased the challenge?

Adams Kellum: We were already feeling that rents had surpassed incomes to such a significant degree that many people just can't make the rent. Mayor Bass predicted that the unhoused count would likely increase because the tenant eviction protection provided during COVID-19 were expiring and many of the associated funding sources and resources were going away.

The economic factors driving homelessness have serious consequences. Last year, Los Angeles witnessed a surge in eviction filings, reaching a decade-high in June 2023. Over 77,000 eviction notices were filed between February and December, primarily due to nonpayment of rent. The average unpaid rent was a staggering $3,774.

Preventing homelessness is crucial to ending it. Keeping people in their current homes is far easier than helping them find new housing after they've become homeless. Every community must prioritize efforts to support those at risk of eviction.

As long as these economic trends persist, the challenge of ending homelessness will remain. We must continue to implement proven solutions to bring more people indoors. Innovation and data-driven approaches are essential to overcoming this crisis.

Juran/Warren: As the expression goes, “necessity is the mother of invention.” Tell us about LAHSA’s innovative master leasing program in the face of a severe housing shortage and unaffordability.

Adams Kellum: LAHSA’s Unit Acquisition department is housed in the CEO's office. In me, they have an executive willing to say how about WE assume the risk from the private market, and WE become the landlord? Under this program, we assume the risk of leasing entire buildings with time-limited subsidies at rental rates that are approved by HUD. We go to landlords and developers and say, “we'll take the whole building.” And rather than them having to worry about one-year leases, we take the whole building for five years. With this “bulk” lease approach, we're able to both negotiate rents and lock them in for a longer period.

We become gatekeepers, and we can make it easier to bring people in. We have a population that has been through a lot and there may be some wear and tear on these buildings that we factor into the negotiation of the master lease. If a tenant turns out not to be able to take on the rent themselves, we have the ability to provide a voucher to cover a significant portion of their rent.

All in all, we think we're on to something unique. As of November 2024, we have 13 active buildings and 540 units under this master lease structure and it’s growing. This program allows us to make whole buildings ready for occupancy pretty quickly.

Juran/Warren: That’s a creative approach. How can you extrapolate from that innovation to continue learning how best to adapt?

Adams Kellum: We're focused on learning how to measure and use data to inform practice. Historically, in our system of care, there hasn't been adequate emphasis on data analysis. We must ensure that what we do works. The data in Los Angeles systems are outdated and are not what they need to be to glean these insights. We are in the process of building out a system that tells us where every available bed is. One of the reasons why I came to LAHSA was to share successful efforts from St. Joseph Center with the broader system. We are excited to have developed an integrated data process where we can use electronic systems to inform our work, such as what the outreach teams are doing and where the encampments are located. These data tools can also see in real time who's in the system. We’ve always had to do this by hand. We are making some headway with data gathering and analysis, and we now have data dashboards to inform our work.

Juran/Warren: How do you prioritize which people are housed?

Adams Kellum: We spend a lot of time on this and our approach is evolving based on what we’ve learned. LAHSA has traditionally used an acuity score to determine the vulnerability of an individual. That, coupled with what we call the Coordinated Entry System (CES) used by service providers in each geographic area, yields a community queue that gets pulled from based on the availability of resources.

But more recently, we've been doing work around data showing that the assessment tool has less accurately assessed vulnerability among people of color, particularly black people. The resiliency factor is underweighted.

There is a real recognition of increased numbers of black people among the homeless, and certainly an overrepresentation of black people. So, for example, where black people make up approximately 7% of the population in the county, black people are approximately 33% of the homeless population. As an aside, you see that stark overrepresentation of black people among the homeless population almost everywhere in the county, sadly.

So, we created an Ad Hoc Committee to really look at this. Many black people interviewed felt that the CES assessment didn't represent them. They didn’t feel like the tool asked the questions that would best describe their experience of vulnerability. We know that, culturally, people are different in the way they experience vulnerability. We also found that the author of the instrument did not norm it on African Americans to the extent necessary. Because we're not even sure the CES tool truly measures vulnerability among the black population, which is overrepresented in the homeless population, we're using it less.

There is a component of this process that has highlighted that systemic racism was embedded into the CES instrument. That has led us to use less of that score and find other ways to drive decisions and throughput of moving people quickly from homelessness or unsheltered homelessness.

Juran/Warren: How do you think either agencies and government, or society more generally, can help people who have substance use disorder or mental illness, but don't seek treatment?

Adams Kellum: In Los Angeles County, with the Department of Health Services (DHS), we built our model around multidisciplinary teams. I think that’s really important. A team may consist of a nurse, a psychiatrist and a social worker, among others. When a particular multidisciplinary team goes out together, it could be the nurse, or the psychiatrist, or the social worker that can help a particular individual. You just don’t know which will be most helpful upfront, and so having all skills available is crucial.

For those who are severely mentally ill, we are still challenged a great deal on what to do when someone isn't well enough to say yes to help. And that's why we need more teams that are uniquely suited to treat someone who is either having a severe episode due to drug and alcohol use or psychotic break. Really excited about the teams that the LA County Department of Mental Health is utilizing to address the need that we’re seeing among those with severe mental illness.

Prop 1, passed last year, allocates $6 billion in bonds to build mental health treatment facilities for people with mental health issues and substance use disorders. It will also help provide housing for the homeless that are suffering from severe mental illness and substance use disorder. The county is still figuring out how it would all work but there would be care courts and ways for people, family members, and providers to refer folks with severe mental illness, with deep needs where they can't say it themselves. Family members would have an avenue to refer people for evaluation. This will help move people indoors even though we know that when someone has mental illness, sometimes it's hard for them to be able to say yes.

As we’re working towards full implementation of Prop 1, we’ve already seen some positive outcomes from our ongoing efforts. Our 2024 point-in-time (PIT) count showed a notable shift in the number of people with substance use disorders and mental illness who have been moved indoors. Specifically, there was a 7.5% decrease in the number of people with serious mental illness who were unsheltered in LA County, alongside a 15% increase in those who were sheltered. These results demonstrate that we are making progress in moving people from the streets into shelters, thanks to the coordinated efforts of multidisciplinary teams and other support systems. While Prop 1 may further accelerate these efforts, we’re already seeing the impact of our current work, which aligns with the broader vision of integrated care and housing support.

Juran/Warren: Thinking about how important pets are to some people, how does pet ownership make finding housing more challenging?

Adams Kellum: I think we have one of the best stories ever. It was early on in our work with the Mayor when I was still at St. Joseph Center. The Mayor came out for a housing intervention in the Venice area. One of the people we met was a woman with 7 dogs in her tent. The mayor is a dog lover, so she understands the importance of pets. We moved this lady and her 7 dogs into a shelter. As far as I know, she's still in interim housing where we found a place that she can be with her 7 dogs.

LAHSA runs a place for immediate housing of people who are coming out of encampments. We try to make sure they're transferred as swiftly as possible to housing, whether it's interim, longer, term interim, or permanent. We get their documents ready. We take them to look at apartments. They have meals there. We have health partners that come out and support the residents. It's just a really great place. We've even set aside beds for people coming off the Metro, people who are frequent utilizers of the Metro system. The Metro system runs 24/7, it’s always open.

And people who have pets can come into this place as well. We even have a lovely dog run at this facility. Because, as you said, we know how important pets are to people. I'm a dog mom too!

Juran/Warren: How does the recent Supreme Court decision of Grants Pass v Johnson impact your work?

Adams Kellum: We do not agree with criminalizing homelessness. We know that doing so perpetuates trauma and disenfranchises people, especially black and Latino folks who together make up the majority of those who experience homelessness in Los Angeles. We believe in housing and services. Not arrest.

In the wake of the Grants Pass decision, it will be up to every city in the county of Los Angeles and the Board of Supervisors to decide how to move forward. LAHSA will remain focused on ending unsheltered homelessness via evidence-based and culturally informed approaches, and by speeding up how quickly people move into permanent housing.

And so, what’s really helpful and exciting for us is that we did it: we housed people off the streets without an arrest, and we know how to do it. We engaged the people in the encampment sincerely and authentically by offering to help. We delivered on what we promised by bringing housing resources that they can utilize immediately. We are doing it in concert with public officials and service providers to ensure that we're all really moving in the same direction.

A lot of communities express a great deal of concern and worry about how to respond to the Grants Pass decision. Communities just don’t know what to do. We can speak about what works. In fact, we recently went out to New Mexico and met with the Governor and all her mayors and chiefs of police. We talked about the approach we are using.

The results of this year's homeless count strongly support our best practices, an approach that aligns all levels of government and our providers around saving lives by resolving encampments and bringing people indoors. The Mayor and the County Board of Supervisors are onto something here in Los Angeles. I’m just happy to be a part of it and to share our experience with others. It’s truly an honorable work.

About the Authors:

Belinda Juran was a 2020 Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow whose social impact is focused on her adopted hometown of Lowell, MA. Before ALI, Juran served as partner at WilmerHale, a global law firm where she co-chaired the technology transactions and licensing practice group and the life sciences practice group. Earlier she was a software engineer, engineering manager and consultant at various software and hardware companies. Juran is a board member of both the International Institute of New England, which supports refugees and immigrants in the eastern Massachusetts and New Hampshire areas, and the Pollard Memorial Library Foundation, which raises funds to support Lowell’s public library. She also serves on the advisory boards of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, the University of Massachusetts Lowell’s School of Education, the Lowell Early Childhood Council, UTEC (which helps proven-risk young adults achieve social and economic success), and the Learn City of Learning Project. 

Paige Warren serves as the Assistant Commissioner for Portfolio Management and Customer Engagement at GSA’s Public Building Service, overseeing strategy, policy, and capital investment for the nation’s largest real estate portfolio — 370 million square feet across 8,800 buildings in 2,200 communities. In 2023, she returned to public service, recognizing a historic opportunity to leverage public resources in addressing pressing social challenges, including equitable urban economic development, sustainability in the built environment, and the evolution of workforce and workplace solutions. Previously, Warren was a Harvard ALI Fellow (2021) and had a distinguished 17-year career at Prudential Financial’s investment management arm, holding senior roles such as Global COO and Head of Strategy, President, and Portfolio Manager. Her career has been deeply rooted in affordable and public housing development and finance. Before Prudential, she led a federal agency focused on preserving and restructuring the nation's affordable housing portfolio. Warren currently serves as vice chair of the board of trustees and chair of the finance subcommittee at The Washington Center, a nonprofit dedicated to expanding diverse talent pipelines and fostering equitable workplaces. She holds an ESG FSA Credential and an ESG Investment certification from the CFA Institute.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.