Both the FBI and IRS are now assisting in the investigation into the $24 billion missing from California Homeless Funding. U.S. attorney warns arrests coming.

What began as a promise to fix homelessness has now turned into a forensic manhunt. The numbers are staggering. Twenty-four billion dollars poured into California’s homelessness programs over five years. And yet, the tents never left, the encampments grew, and the money disappeared like mist at dawn.

Now the federal government is stepping in. The FBI and IRS are digging through financial records to track every dollar. This is not a courtesy check. It is an emergency audit of a system that failed to produce results, even after billions were allocated.

U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli has formed a dedicated Homelessness Fraud and Corruption Task Force. His words carry weight. He said that if state and local officials will not oversee these funds, the federal government will. If federal laws were broken, arrests will follow. There is no hedging. This is a criminal probe.

The focus has turned sharply to Southern California. Los Angeles County is at the center, with more than 75,000 homeless residents and a trail of missing funds. One court-ordered audit revealed that over two billion dollars remain unaccounted for. That alone is enough to bring down entire departments.

The agencies involved are not small names. Federal prosecutors are joined by the FBI, the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, and the Office of the Inspector General from Housing and Urban Development. Each entity is looking for fraud, waste, and corruption. Each has the authority to prosecute.

Part of the problem lies in the structure. Funds have flowed through overlapping nonprofits, loosely monitored contractors, and political offices with little fiscal control. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority has come under heavy fire for failing to track spending and deliver transparency. It functioned more like a cash funnel than a public agency.

The public trusted this money would help people off the streets. Instead, the streets are more dangerous, shelters are overcrowded, and many contracts show no measurable outcomes. Some programs doubled in cost but served fewer people. Others simply vanished.

Now investigators are tracking federal grants, COVID emergency aid, and even private donations. Each transaction is a breadcrumb. The goal is to reconstruct a system that may have been built to be untraceable. The deeper they go, the more troubling it looks.

The question is not just where the money went. The question is who benefited. If arrests come, they will not stop at lower-level employees. The entire political machinery that managed this crisis is now under the microscope.

Meanwhile, homelessness in California continues to rise. Politicians promise more funding. The public grows cynical. If no one is held accountable this time, the next twenty-four billion may disappear faster than the last.

BIG ‼️ Both the FBI and IRS are now assisting in the investigation into the $24 billion missing from California Homeless Funding

“We will get to the bottom of it and if we find that any federal laws are violated, we will arrest and prosecute those individuals involved” – US… pic.twitter.com/hb1sULNI3Q

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) April 14, 2025