OMG’s undercover journalist met with Donald Buyers, a Los Angeles housing official. He shares how billions in taxpayer dollars are being spent on homelessness and low-income housing programs. What he admitted on camera raises serious questions about fraud, oversight, and political influence.
Donald Byers, a Finance Development Officer working on city-backed housing projects, acknowledged that funds are being diverted with little accountability.
“I have a couple of developers doing really sketchy stuff… we can’t figure out where all the money is going — it’s going to people’s pockets.”
Byers described projects involving CRCD, where officials allegedly could not track how large sums of public money were being used. He expressed he reported these issues internally. Byers made clear that raising alarms has led nowhere, after he reported it but nothing happened.
Despite years of funding increases and continued project delays, Byers indicated that accountability is failing, by admitting that;
“At this point, I’m just covering myself.”
Byers also suggested that political considerations may play a role in the lack of enforcement. According to Byers, officials are reluctant to take action against developers with connections to City Hall.
“If they were to call out the people contacting Karen Bass’s office, she might not get enough money for re-election.”
He also further pointed to LAHSA, the agency responsible for coordinating homelessness services, as another example of heavy funding with limited visible results. LAHSA has allocated money but has little to show for it, according to Byers.
These admissions come as Los Angeles continues to pour billions of taxpayer dollars into homelessness and housing programs, while encampments remain widespread and measurable progress remains limited.
OMG has previously reported on similar issues, including nonprofits receiving tens of millions in funding despite underutilized infrastructure and ongoing federal investigations into misuse of homelessness funds. Byers’ statements align with those findings, pointing to a system where money continues to flow even as accountability breaks down.
When OMG contacted Donald Byers for comment he threatened to contact lawyers in order to stop our publication of his own words about LA City Fraud.
We also contacted Mayor Karen Bass’s office for comment. They responded,
“This is total BS. We’re not going to comment on this nonsense further.”
If you have tips about waste, fraud, or abuse in these programs, contact us at [email protected] or (914) 491-9395.
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