There’s just no good reason to compound the tragedy that is the sinful scourge of homelessness in Los Angeles County — 75,000 fellow human beings living among us without a simple place to call their own — with inexcusable fiscal bungling in government’s attempts to get roofs over people’s heads.

But such bungling has been the status quo in the county and in the city of Los Angeles for decades, with precious little to show for billions of dollars in spending.

The residents of L.A. County who have paid those bills are understandably up in arms. And just now, a doubling of the percentage of the sales tax set aside for work against homelessness has kicked in across the county. That means millions more for politicians and bureaucrats many people are rightly frustrated with.

So we have to applaud the creation of a task force — a criminal one — to look into allegations of fraud involving homelessness funds in the county.

We also note with interest the person behind that task force, is former Riverside County Assemblyman Bill Essayli, the newly appointed U.S. attorney for the Los Angeles area, who cites a recent court-ordered audit of homeless services in the county that showed careless accounting and little follow up with contracted providers to let us know what is working and what is not.

As the county had to say in court documents, “[The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority] does not know who it is paying and for what. The city doesn’t know how much it is paying, and for what. The system is disjointed and mismanaged, with layers of redundancies and bureaucracy built on top of itself. There is nearly zero financial oversight or accountability by the city and county of LAHSA, or by LAHSA of the service providers with whom it contracts.”

If that sounds like that disaster, that’s because it is.

“Taxpayers deserve answers for where and how their hard-earned money has been spent,” Essayli said. “If state and local officials cannot provide proper oversight and accountability, we will do it for them. If we discover any federal laws were violated, we will make arrests.”

We applaud this effort.

Taxpayers, and barnstorming public officials, also need to understand that just because homelessness continues doesn’t mean that some efforts haven’t been effective. For every person housed, a new resident or newcomer seems to lose a job, to fall prey to mental illness and substance abuse. But we hope this investigation goes deep and works to restore public trust.