Amid questions about his resume, leader of new Los Angeles housing agency plans to depart

A new Los Angeles County public entity soon will collect an estimated $400 million annually in taxpayer money to fund low-income housing developments across the county.

Ryan Johnson, interim chief executive of the Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency, is tasked with spending those dollars to finally make a dent in the region’s unrelenting homelessness crisis.

Johnson was selected in September from 28 applicants. The agency’s board members — L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, all five county supervisors, other local elected officials and nonprofit leaders — touted Johnson for bringing a fresh perspective, someone who could identify creative ways of funding low-income housing. His resume laid out a history in finance, capital markets, and real estate development and investment through a career spent mostly outside of government.

But Times interviews with board members and a past employer raised concerns about Johnson’s background and the vetting that led to his assuming the job as interim head.

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Johnson said that in his last job as founder and CEO of Fulham Square Capital, he acquired 2,600 apartment units and converted them from market-rate to affordable housing within 14 months. After The Times raised questions about those transactions, the outside consultant that handled LACAHSA’s CEO search said it did not research individual deals, which it said was beyond the scope of its responsibilities. And citing confidentiality agreements with his investors, Johnson himself will not provide any specific information about the transactions.

In his job before Fulham, Johnson worked as a vice president for a Bay Area nonprofit housing developer, and in his five months there, he said, he helped save the firm from bankruptcy. A spokesperson for the company disputed that claim, saying it was never at financial risk.

Before moving to California, Johnson worked as a vice president for a South Carolina nonprofit investor. Over 15 months, Johnson said, he grew the firm’s assets from $5 million to $220 million. The nonprofit’s tax forms, however, show a much smaller increase. Johnson explained the inconsistency by saying that some of the deals were joint ventures with assets on other companies’ books.

In a late March interview, Johnson said he planned to be with the agency for the “long haul.” Less than two weeks later, he announced he was not going to pursue LACAHSA’s permanent CEO position when his one-year contract expires this fall. Johnson said he wanted to return to the private sector to have more flexibility to care for an ailing family member.

The decision means LACAHSA will embark on its second national search for a CEO in two years, unsettling an agency that is just getting off the ground.

Miguel Santana, the president and CEO of the California Community Foundation and vice chair of the LACAHSA board, said the need to find another leader and questions about Johnson’s background check mean the agency should overhaul its hiring process.

LACAHSA is paying Illinois-based KEES Alford Executive Search up to $175,000 over two years to lead the search for an interim and permanent CEO. The firm said it used industry standards and conducted an appropriate search.

Santana said the agency should consider contracting with a new consultant.

“Any partner that we engage to support our selection has to do a thorough vetting of the experience that is being stated in a resume,” Santana said.

LACAHSA will receive more than a third of the estimated $1.1 billion raised annually by the half-cent sales tax increase approved by county voters in November and which took effect in April. The agency, founded through state legislation in 2022, is supposed to create affordable housing by financing new low-income developments and paying to convert market-rate properties, among other means.

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Proponents said a new agency was needed to make housing decisions that benefit the whole region, rather than relying on piecemeal funding from the county’s 88 cities.

“We need an innovative and entrepreneurial-minded CEO that is prepared to find solutions to address the region’s most complex challenge and deliver results, and we’ve found that in Ryan Johnson,” said Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson, LACAHSA’s board chair, in the September news release announcing Johnson’s hiring.

Johnson’s salary is $245,000.

In the decade before he began at LACAHSA, Johnson held eight jobs, including those at firms he started. He averaged less than 18 months in each role. Johnson said the job changes were necessary to climb the ladder in the real estate industry.

“My whole body of work is prominent,” said Johnson, 42. “It’s a multi-decade career. A lot of it has been doing financial innovation in the affordable space.”

Bob Simpson, a former executive at mortgage giant Fannie Mae, selected Johnson for an advisory board on a national nonprofit that aims to increase private capital for affordable housing. Simpson said Johnson put together inventive financing programs when the latter was at the South Carolina nonprofit, Greenville Housing Fund.

“I’ve always been impressed with the thought process he brings and how he approaches pretty tough issues,” Simpson said.

Simpson said he was unfamiliar with the specifics of Johnson’s most recent work.

In June 2023, according to his resume, Johnson started Fulham Square Capital, an investment firm that owns and operates affordable housing. The company operated out of an office in a WeWork co-working space in West Hollywood, he said.

Johnson said Fulham raised more than $120 million in equity from sovereign wealth funds and other investors, acquired more than $350 million in distressed assets from lenders, and acquired and converted more than 2,600 units from market-rate to mixed- and low-income housing. He said the firm operated in five states: Arizona, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.

Asked for a list of Fulham projects during an interview, Johnson said he would provide one. But on April 3, 10 days later and the same day he announced his departure, Johnson said his investors would not allow him to disclose any information about the deals.

“The investors want to keep it private,” Johnson said. “That’s part of the responsibility of raising private capital.”

Legal experts told The Times it was normal for real estate companies to shield their investors. Still, they said there was no prohibition against disclosing basic information about their deals, and noted that private firms and local governments often publicize their low-income housing efforts.

“I don’t understand why he can’t tell you what the projects are,” said Deepika Sharma, the director of the housing law and policy clinic at USC’s Gould School of Law.

Interviews and public records raise questions about Johnson’s record in earlier positions.

From September 2023 to January 2024, Johnson worked at Community Housing Opportunities Corp., a Fairfield, Calif.-based nonprofit developer. He said in his resume that he restructured $20 million of the firm’s debt to avoid bankruptcy.

Leeza Hoyt, a spokesperson for the developer, said the company never was at risk of bankruptcy, and noted Johnson worked there only briefly.

Johnson was adamant that he helped keep the firm solvent. He shared emails from his time at Community Housing Opportunities Corp. that indicate efforts to stem financial trouble at a planned Coachella Valley low-income housing development.

“A company is not going to say, ‘We’re in bad shape,’” Johnson said. “They’re never going to admit it.”

Hoyt acknowledged that the project had funding challenges, but said that those were resolved. Today, the development is built and fully leased, she said.

“Ryan Johnson says a lot of things,” Hoyt said. The developer would not offer Johnson a job again, she added.

Before working in the Bay Area, Johnson served as vice president of capital markets and real estate for Greenville Housing Fund from April 2022 to June 2023.

Stephanie Graves, a spokesperson for LACAHSA, said board members were impressed with Johnson’s efforts on a $31-million deal to use nontraditional funding and a public-private partnership to acquire and renovate a 212-unit apartment building.

Johnson said in his resume he did much more than that. Johnson said he increased the firm’s assets from $5 million to $220 million. A LACAHSA news release detailing Johnson’s background repeats the claim, though it states the growth was from $5 million to $247 million.

The nonprofit’s tax forms show that its total assets increased by much less than Johnson said, from $12 million at the beginning of 2022 to $81 million at the end of 2023.

Johnson said that his high-end figure included joint ventures in which the fund was a small investor.

“Other partners are going to take the majority of that onto their balance sheet,” he said.

Johnson said his low-end, $5-million number might be an error.

“I may have put down the wrong number in that particular instance on accident,” he said.

Johnson said Bryan Brown, Greenville Housing Fund’s CEO, was a reference for the LACAHSA position. The Times could not reach Brown for comment.

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When first contacted by The Times, Johnson requested to have an interview jointly with Richardson, the Long Beach mayor and LACAHSA board chair. Richardson said he was confident in the vetting for the interim CEO role, noting that the agency contracted with KEES, the outside search firm.

“KEES did a full process of reference checking,” Richardson said.

KEES CEO Heather Eddy said the firm confirmed Johnson’s background and employment credentials and relied on industry-standard methods, including speaking with references, to evaluate performance at prior jobs. It did not look at individual deals made by Fulham Square Capital, she said.

“A condition of Ryan’s employment was relinquishing his leadership role in Fulham Square Capital,” Eddy said. “It is not customary practice to verify transactions of a private company in a background check.”

Eddy said her firm stands by its work.

“We conducted a robust process that delivered a strong pool of candidates to the board to make their decision,” Eddy said. “We believe Mr. Johnson is well qualified for this position.”

Richardson did not respond to a request for a follow-up interview after Johnson declined to disclose Fulham Square Capital’s deals.

Zerita Jones, a tenant advocate and LACAHSA board member, said that she’d had no concern about Johnson’s performance as CEO and that he had been responsive to her requests. But she said the questions about his resume will cause her to evaluate him with extra scrutiny.

“I’m on guard,” Jones said. “I’m going to be watching.”

Other LACAHSA board members contacted by The Times — Bass, L.A. City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson and county Supervisor Lindsey Horvath — declined or did not respond to requests for comment. Supervisor Holly Mitchell and L.A. Councilmember Nithya Raman provided statements that did not address Johnson’s background or the hiring process, and instead spoke generally about LACAHSA and the need for accountability in homelessness programs.

Bellflower City Council Member Victor Sanchez, a LACAHSA board member who led the agency’s ad hoc search committee, defended the selection.

“Through the interview process, we asked a broad range of questions to try to understand both past experience and — just as important — how each candidate would maximize LACAHSA’s tools and role,” Sanchez said. “Ultimately, the decision was a unanimous one.”