Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) has made homelessness one of the defining issues of her administration and a central focus of her reelection campaign. But it’s her abysmal attendance record on the commission overseeing the region’s homelessness response that is raising questions.
Bass appointed herself to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority governing commission in late 2023, but according to an LAist analysis of public records, she has missed 25 of 47 commission meetings since joining. That includes 13 of 21 meetings since mid-August 2025. Her failure to show up could trigger provisions in LAHSA’s bylaws allowing commissioners to be removed for excessive absenteeism.
LAHSA has faced intense scrutiny over its handling of homelessness, its finances, and its future, while Bass is seeking another term as voters continue to judge her administration largely on its response to the homelessness crisis.
The mayor’s office says Bass has remained up to date on LAHSA’s work regardless of her attendance. Supporters also argue that Bass has been more engaged on homelessness than any previous Los Angeles mayor, pointing to her Inside Safe program, which moves unhoused people into temporary motel and hotel rooms, as well as broader efforts to move people from encampments into housing.
But LAHSA Commissioner Justin Szlasa told LAist that commissioners need to attend meetings to participate in the agency’s deliberative process.
Nick Smith, a national political strategist with Polaris, dismissed the criticism as an effort by Bass’s runoff opponent, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nithya Raman, to find an issue that could stick against the incumbent.
“Council Member Raman is grasping for anything that will stick against incumbent Mayor Bass, and I don’t think attendance at a commission is it,” Smith told the Washington Examiner.
He argued that Bass’s record on homelessness should be measured by results, not her attendance at LAHSA meetings.
“That is a far more meaningful measure of whether the mayor is engaged on homelessness than how many LAHSA commission meetings she attended,” Smith said.
Under Bass, Los Angeles saw homelessness decline for two consecutive years for the first time in city history. Street homelessness fell 17.5% from before she took office through the 2025 count, the largest two-year decline since the count began. However, the latest LAHSA homeless count numbers showed overall homelessness, referring to people without a fixed nighttime residence, increased 3.4% last year. Street homelessness, or people who live in tents, cars, and outdoors, rose 7.9%.
Smith also said LAHSA’s role should be viewed in the broader context of Bass’s responsibilities as mayor.
“LAHSA is a commission that no one has really heard of,” he said. “Bass runs the City of Los Angeles as chief executive.”
As mayor, Bass oversees city departments, controls the municipal budget, directs the Inside Safe program, addresses encampments, accelerates housing construction, and makes the executive decisions that determine how the city responds to homelessness.
Her administration also has representation on LAHSA through Stephanie Graves, Bass’s appointee, who chairs the commission.
“So I think the criticism gets the hierarchy backward,” Smith said. “Bass’s job is not to be the most faithful attendee at a commission meeting. Her job is to produce results on homelessness. And she has produced measurable results.”
Los Angeles County has been moving some responsibilities away from LAHSA, while the Trump administration suspended LAHSA’s ability to administer roughly $240 million in federal homelessness funding before a federal judge blocked the move. The agency now faces questions about its funding, authority, and future structure.
Smith said Raman faces a more fundamental political challenge than attacking Bass over her LAHSA attendance: expanding her coalition.
“At some point she has to do something she probably despises politically: make a serious pitch to moderates and Republicans who did not vote for either woman in the first round,” Smith said. “If she can’t win a meaningful share of those voters, she may have already shown us her ceiling.”
Smith predicted the LAHSA attendance issue is more likely to become another opposition talking point than a factor that fundamentally changes the race.
“Voters care about whether there are fewer people sleeping on their streets and whether the mayor is getting results,” he said. “Bass has an actual record to point to on both.”
Michael Fahey, founder of Fahey Communications, told the Washington Examiner that Bass appointing herself to the commission makes the optics significantly worse.
“If someone else had appointed her, there would at least be some distance,” he said. “She made a deliberate decision to put herself in that seat. That creates an expectation that she intended to use it. Can this move voters? By itself, probably not many. But these stories rarely exist in isolation. Homelessness is already something voters see with their own eyes every day, and the latest count showed unsheltered homelessness increasing again. An attendance story can become another piece of evidence for voters who already believe the city’s response isn’t moving quickly enough.”
Political expert Brad Chase offered a less forgiving assessment of Bass, arguing that the issue is not necessarily that the mayor is distracted but that she appears increasingly disorganized.
“Mayor Bass isn’t distracted so much as she is disorganized,” Chase told the Washington Examiner. “Governing the city is a much more challenging job now than it was 10 years ago, but falling behind the times is her bigger area of concern.”
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Chase argued that Bass faces a broader political challenge, as progressive candidates in other major cities have shown they can defeat establishment politicians without necessarily winning every traditional policy fight.
“The far-left leaders racking up wins in New York, Seattle, and elsewhere don’t even need to fight on the issues to win against establishment figures like Bass,” Chase said. “They just have to show basic life skills inherent to the 2020s.”