What We Lost: The Prototypes That Didn't Survive
Not an org chart. A bloom. This is what we imagined.
Letters to the Housed by Paul Asplund
Part 5 of the series on LA County's Department of Homeless Services and Housing
On February 3, the Board of Supervisors approved the FY 2026 budget for the new Department of Homeless Services and Housing. I was disappointed by the results but not surprised. We had been asked to imagine what was possible—to design a department that could end homelessness in LA County. They had to make the numbers work. That was one of our first guidelines, to make it work financially, but almost nothing of what we proposed survived.
There are no hard feelings. Sarah Mahin, the department's new director, is doing impossible work. The supervisors made hard choices facing a $200 million shortfall. Federal funding collapsed. State funding disappeared. One-time COVID relief dollars ran out.
But the people who gave their time and hope to this process deserve to know what happened to their work.
In these last two articles, we'll go over some of what was proposed, and what ultimately made it to reality. Let's start with the proposals that fared the worst. It's a mixed bag of wins and losses, but mostly losses.
Prototype 1: The Decision-Making Matrix
What we proposed: A mechanism to make county funding decisions transparent. When programs get funded or cut, the rationale would be visible. A co-design team with equal voting power—county representatives and people with lived experience—would shape the criteria. This was the only prototype that directly confronted the question of who decides.
What survived: $300,000 for a "Community Liaisons" program. The budget describes it as people with lived experience who will "inform program and system improvements." Advisory input. Listening sessions. Compensation for participants.
What didn't: Equal voting power. Transparent decision-making matrices. The word in the budget is "inform"—not decide, not vote.
Prototype 2: Equitable Contracting and Provider Supports
What we proposed: Everyone in the room knew contracts don't cover actual service costs. Providers take out lines of credit to make payroll. Staff leave for jobs at Target to pay their rent. Clients lose their case managers too often.
We designed an independent third-party cost study to determine what services actually cost, with the county committing to pay those rates. We proposed an à la carte menu of supports: barrier busting with other agencies (the county has relationships with Social Security and DMV that small providers don't), clinical backup, workforce development, compliance help.
What survived: An interim housing rate increase acknowledging the previous rate was inadequate. As one provider advocate noted, "They chose to finally adjust the bed rate. Not because they needed to be fair, but they were losing facilities."
What didn't: The cost study. The provider support menu. Systematic barrier-busting infrastructure. Workforce development funding (LA:RISE, which connected homeless individuals to jobs, was eliminated entirely).
Prototype 3: The Cultural Care Unit
What we proposed: A unit richly staffed with people immersed in the communities being served—LGBTQ+ individuals, immigrants, survivors of gender-based violence, veterans, older adults, formerly incarcerated people. A unit that would inform contracting, develop culturally specific training, and ensure best practices reach the communities they're designed to serve.
Crucially, the unit would go to community—not ask community to come to them. Twice-yearly listening sessions where county leadership comes to the neighborhood. Required reporting within 60 days on what was heard and what's being done.
We drew a flower with community at the center, direct lines radiating out to decision-makers. Not the typical org chart where community feedback is a distant offshoot.
What survived: Priority population language. The budget acknowledges "disproportionately impacted populations, including families, youth, and survivors of domestic violence."
What didn't: The dedicated unit. Staffing from impacted communities. Listening sessions where leadership comes to us. The 60-day accountability mechanism.
Prototype 4: Community Engagement and Homes Events
What we proposed: Rebuilding community trust through presence and relationship. A 24/7 digital toolkit for self-navigation. Regular town halls. And twice-yearly "Homes Events" modeled on community celebrations—large gatherings where thousands access resources while building genuine connection. Every person gets a volunteer companion who treats them like a valued human being.
Not only would we improve service delivery, we'd start to shift the narrative from stigma toward shared humanity.
What survived: $150,000 for "ongoing community education efforts on homelessness and affordable housing."
What didn't: The digital toolkit. The Homes Events. The volunteer companion model. The large-scale trust-building infrastructure we envisioned.
Programs That Were Cut Entirely
The FY 2026-27 budget, which takes effect July 1, eliminates entire service categories that are currently funded.
Problem Solving ($138,000 → $0): Early intervention for housing crises
Prevention Case Management ($2.8M → $0): Support for at-risk families
Youth Family Reconnection ($1.6M → $0): Therapeutic support for young people rebuilding family relationships
Housing Navigation ($12.9M → $0): Help identifying, viewing, and securing units
Safe Parking ($1.7M → $0): Sites for vehicle residents
Legal Services ($746,000 → $0): Eviction prevention, credit resolution, record expungement
Campus Peer Navigation ($793,000 → $0): Support for homeless college students
Pathway Home ($92M cut): 13 of 20 sites closing, 785 beds disappearing
The Math
The Community Liaisons program: $300,000. The Client Portal (from our data system prototype): $143,000.
That's roughly $443,000 of dedicated co-design implementation in an $843 million budget—about 0.05%.
What I've Learned
I'm not surprised by this outcome, and I'm not angry. Disappointed, yes. But I understand the impossible position everyone was in.
We were designing in a two-month window between California zeroing out HHAP funding and the federal government announcing the end of Housing First. The money was already disappearing while we wrote on butcher paper.
The co-design process was real and the solutions were evidence-based. But the power to fund what we designed lives somewhere else. Federal policy, state budgets, and a county facing a $4 billion legal settlement.
Supervisor Holly Mitchell said it well: "The services with the greatest impact in the Second District remain reduced." She participated in good faith. Her constituents participated in good faith. And the budget couldn't fund what they designed.
A Reason to Continue
Next week, I'll write about what did survive. The programs that made it through, the foundation we can build on.
Radical Hope isn't about pretending the losses don't hurt. It's about looking directly at them and choosing engagement anyway.
We still have each other. We still have the relationships forged in that room. We still have the vision we created—documented, remembered, waiting for the day when funding matches ambition.
This is just the first year. The next budget cycle is coming. The community knows what it needs, and now we have it written down.
In love and service,
Paul
Paul Asplund is the founder of Second Grace LA and author of Letters to the Housed.
Sources: FY 2026-27 HSH Measure A Spending Plan; LA Times (February 3, 2026); LAist (November 21, 2025); ChangeWell Project community sessions (September-November 2025)
Next: What Made It—celebrating the programs that survived.
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