LA City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto demands an audit of nonprofit LAFLA, citing up to $87 million in unaccounted taxpayer housing funds.
Page F120From§Eachthe morning edition — 17 October 2026
Housing nonprofit backed by LA mayoral candidate can't account for $87 million in housing money
As it ran on the front
Eighty-seven million dollars is the size of the gap Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto wants closed. The gap sits inside a nonprofit called LAFLA, a group backed by mayoral candidate Nithya Raman. The money came from the city's "Mansion Tax" and was meant to build housing. The audit demand, reported October 16, does not say where the money went. It says the city does not know.
Start with the number itself. That qualifier is the first entry in the ledger: the city is not disputing a specific sum, it is disputing a ceiling. Eighty-seven million is the most the gap could be, which means the actual figure, whatever it turns out to be, has not been produced by anyone yet. An audit exists to find that number. As of this filing, no audit has finished.…
…(cont) Second entry: who asked. The request came from the city attorney's office, dated October 16 and 17. Nothing in that request makes Feldstein Soto a candidate for mayor, and nothing here calls her one. What the request does establish is narrower and harder to argue with: in a mayoral race where Raman's campaign has built part of its case on housing policy, the only math anyone has put on paper about this particular $87 million came from outside the campaign, from an office whose job is demanding paper.
Compare the proof required elsewhere. On September 28, lawmakers from both parties criticized a taxpayer-funded television commercial for the president titled "Love Me." The commercial needed no audit to be established as a fact. It was airing. People with televisions saw it, and lawmakers objected in the same news cycle. The nonprofit's $87 million needed three weeks and a formal audit demand before anyone could even state the size of the gap, because unlike a commercial, the money does not run on a schedule anyone outside City Hall can watch.
That is the reconciliation, hon. One column shows a nonprofit Raman backs, a tax built for housing, and a figure that tops out at $87 million unaccounted. The other column shows an audit demand with two dates on it and no total yet. Until those columns match, the only number in this race anyone has actually filed is the city attorney's, and it is a ceiling, not an answer.
“Eighty-seven million dollars of mansion-tax money went into a nonprofit for housing, and the only person asking where it went works in the city attorney's office, not the campaign. That's the trick with these housing nonprofits — the tax passes, the press conference happens, and the paperwork gets quieter every year after. You can smell rent going up around here; you can't smell where this money went, and neither can the city, apparently.”
“Look, an audit request isn't an accusation, it's a routine good-government step, that's — that's literally what audits are for, nothing to see here. And "up to $87 million" could mean the real number is way smaller, could be practically nothing, we don't know, which is exactly my point, so why is everyone treating a ceiling like a total? Did I just defend not knowing the number as the defense? That doesn't sound like me.”
The receipts
How can Nithya Raman run the city of LA if one of her pet projects is missing $87 million? That’s a question voters will be asking after the city attorney’s latest bombshell report.
· Lawmakers on both sides push back on taxpayer dollars spent on Trump "Love Me" commercial from the morgue, 28 Sep 2026
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