I recently wrote about a video that California Gov. Gavin Newsom doesn’t want you to see, showing many parts of Los Angeles looking third-world due to the city’s homeless crisis. My article included a warning to Newsom from The Benny Show host Benny Johnson:
Gavin Newsom spent $24 billion on "solving homelessness." That adds up to $170K per homeless person in California. Where I’m from, $170K will buy you a house. California could have just bought homes for every homeless person. Anyway, what was the result? California gained 30,000 MORE homeless. The most in America, by far. So where did all the money go, Gavin? Fraud. It’s provable. And we’re about to investigate exactly how… get ready.
Fortunately, it's not just podcasters who are digging into the fraud in California.
First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli announced on Friday that Alexander Soofer, 42, was arrested on a federal criminal complaint for fraudulently obtaining homeless funds. The alleged amount of fraud is reminiscent of the Somali daycare center scandal in Minneapolis.
According to a press release from the United States Attorney’s Office, Central District of California, Soofer received more than $23 million in homeless housing funding between 2018 and 2025 and lived fat on the funds, keeping “at least $10 million of it, including using it for a $7 million house in Westwood, $125,000 Range Rover, private school tuition for his children, private jet travel, and stays at luxury resorts.”
Five million came from the “Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) to provide housing for people who were homeless or were at risk of becoming homeless.”
Related: The Video Gavin Newsom Doesn't Want You to See
Investigative journalist Nick Shirley exposed Somali-run fake daycare centers, including one with the misspelled name “Learing Center,” that didn’t even have any children. The word “fake” also appears repeatedly in the Soofer story. From the press release:
To cover up the fraud, Soofer fabricated fake and misleading invoices – at times stealing the names, addresses, and logos of real companies – to make it appear that the vendor and rent payments were legitimate.
When a LAHSA investigator asked Soofer if his charity’s board knew how he was spending money, he said they did, but the investigator later learned that the board was fake – some of the people did not exist, and others had never heard of Abundant Blessings or Soofer.
When announcing two similar cases last year, Essayli warned that it was just the "tip of the iceberg” when it comes to accountability for the misuse of billions of tax dollars intended to address the homeless crisis. The fraud in those cases is shocking in its scale — so much so that even a YouTuber could start to uncover the details. ABC7 reported at the time:
Cody Holmes, 31, of Beverly Hills, was arrested Thursday on a mail fraud charge allegedly linked to millions of dollars in grant money paid by the state to Shangri-La Industries — where Holmes was CFO — for the purchase, construction and operation of homeless housing in Thousand Oaks, in Ventura County.
According to the complaint, the state paid $25.9 million in funds from Homekey — a California program that aims to convert properties such as motels into affordable housing — to Shangri-La. Holmes allegedly submitted fake bank records to the California Department of Housing and Community Development to prove the developer could complete the projects for which it had applied for grants, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
But prosecutors contend the bank accounts that Shangri-La and Holmes said contained $160 million did not exist. ...
In the second case, Steven Taylor, 44, of Brentwood, was charged in Los Angeles federal court with seven counts of bank fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft and one count of money laundering.
According to the indictment, Taylor used fake bank statements and false cash representations to obtain loans and lines of credit to operate his real estate business.
Of course, no state legislation uncovered this fraud, because that is the last thing Newsom would want. In fact, the governor vetoed a 2024 bill that would have tracked every dollar spent on homelessness, despite its bipartisan support. State Rep. Joshua Hoover, the author of the bill, criticized the veto, saying: "Governor Newsom is doubling down on his failed response to homelessness."
Related: Nightmare in America's Cities
In a Newsmax interview last night, Vice President JD Vance said, “I think we have a fraud problem that is much worse in California than it is in Minnesota.” After today’s developments, that claim seems increasingly plausible.
PJ Media’s Matt Margolis wrote this week about how Gov. Gavin Newsom revealed his unfitness for national leadership by criticizing President Donald Trump on the world stage in Davos, Switzerland. Now, with fraud allegations coming to light in California, that scrutiny is only growing. The fraud in Minnesota exposed Gov. Tim Walz’s unsuitability for office, ultimately leading him to end his reelection bid. If the fraud in California continues to surface, will Newsom face the same political reckoning?
Please considering supporting PJ Media as we expose the lies of leftists like Gavin Newson. Become a VIP member today and enjoy our exclusive content, an ad-free experience, and podcasts.
Right now you can get 74% off PJ Media VIP! Use code POTUS47.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member