The Brief

Thousands of volunteers will spread out across Los Angeles this week to take an official tally of the region’s unhoused population — an effort that carries new urgency after the recent wildfires.

The point-in-time Homeless Count, led by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, was originally scheduled for last month but was delayed due to the wildfires that tore through Los Angeles County. The annual event is a crucial metric for understanding the scope of L.A.'s homelessness crisis and the effectiveness of local policies.

But the fires this year have made the effort more complicated by displacing thousands of residents, polluting the region with toxic smoke and ash, and potentially upending the normal routines of homeless Angelenos.

Homeless service providers and advocates also say they fear the focus on wildfire recovery is already diverting public attention and resources away from homelessness. They say the data gathered in this year’s count is key to keeping the issue on the public’s radar.

“Not only do we get a snapshot of what's happening here in L. A. County — of what's working and what's not working – we also get to compare that against other parts of the country,” said Rowan Vansleve, president of Hope the Mission in the San Fernando Valley.

“And that is so important right now.”

Delayed count

The count had been scheduled for late January but was postponed over concerns that evacuations of both housed and unhoused residents and disruptions to homeless services providers would compromise the accuracy of the data gathered.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA, was also worried about sending volunteers into burn areas where their health or safety could be jeopardized.

Because of the risks, LAHSA is expected to deploy teams of its own outreach workers, instead of volunteers, to count unhoused people within census tracts that sustained fire damage. Those teams will work with first responders to access the areas safely, officials said.

Despite the challenges, the agency says its volunteer recruitment efforts are on pace with last year’s numbers. As of Friday, more than 4,000 volunteers had registered. Last year, about 6,000 volunteers participated, LAHSA said.

The agency has requested nearly 8,000 volunteers for this year, but the agency said only about 2,600 are required in order to conduct an accurate count.

The annual point-in-time count of the unhoused population is required by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Government agencies, including LAHSA, use the data to decide how to allocate funding and resources.

“This is an opportunity for us to unite and participate in a project that will help people living on our streets,” said LAHSA spokesperson Chris Yee. “The Homeless Count helps us gain a clearer picture of homelessness in our community.”

LAHSA typically publishes the results of the count in late spring or early summer, but the agency hasn’t said how the postponement will affect this year’s release.

Volunteers arrive for the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count in 2022. LAHSA has made updates to the volunteering process this year to try to make it easier.

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Frederic J. Brown

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The numbers 

In 2024, LAHSA estimated there were 45,252 unhoused people in the city of L.A. at the time of the January point-in-time count and 75,312 across the county.

In both cases, the numbers were a slight reduction from 2023. They measured a 2% decrease in the city of L.A. and a 0.27% decrease countywide, which is within the count's margin of error.

Still, it was the first time in several years without a spike in the region’s unhoused population. Nationally, the homeless population rose 18% over that same period.

The 2024 Homeless Count also showed a 10% decrease specifically in unsheltered homelessness, as more people moved into shelters and hotels. It’s unclear what those unsheltered numbers will look like this year, or how the wildfires might have shifted the balance.

“Are we gonna see more people unsheltered or, probably more likely, will the shelter numbers be up because people are displaced?” said Ben Henwood, director of USC’s Homelessness Policy Research Institute. “And then how will we know if it’s the disaster that impacted the numbers or something else?”

Deepening the crisis

The wildfires that ignited in early January destroyed nearly 12,000 homes in the Pacific Palisades, Altadena and Pasadena and caused more than $100 billion in losses.

They also spurred increases in rent prices, including instances of illegal rent gouging.

Most of the thousands of families who lost their homes in the fires are not expected to show up in next week’s homeless count, which tallies people living outside in tents and vehicles, as well as in homeless shelters. The count doesn’t include people living doubled-up with other families or staying in Airbnbs.

“Most people who are homeless were last housed with someone else. They weren't even renters, they were lodgers in someone else's property,” said Gary Blasi, a law professor at UCLA.

The loss of thousands of single-family homes in Pacific Palisades and Altadena doesn’t necessarily mean a shorter supply of housing available to extremely low-income Angelenos, experts say.

But rising housing demand from wildfire victims will worsen L.A.'s existing housing shortage, likely forcing more low-income Angelenos into homelessness in the long-term.

“We've been trying to build ourselves out of this mess for a while,” said Sarah Hunter, director of the RAND Center on Housing and Homelessness. “Now there's just going to be more strain on the system.”

How the wildfires will affect this year's Greater L.A. Homeless Count is a big unknown.

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Frederic J. Brown

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AFP via Getty Images

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Shifting priorities

Wildfire recovery is expected to remain a top priority for public officials, which could mean less spending on homeless services — especially as the city of L.A. is facing a budget crisis fueled by increased legal payouts and labor costs.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass has said she aims to end street homelessness by next year, and homelessness has been at the top of the city’s agenda since she took office.

But UCLA's Blasi said that’s likely to change amid rebuilding efforts after the fires.

“The finite attention span of the government is going to be much more focused on this new problem,” he said, “And that's going to take that attention away from the homeless crisis, even as it exacerbates the homeless crisis.”

Many homeless services providers are nervous about decreases in public dollars and charitable donations forcing them to cut back services.

“Attention has shifted, so we're not seeing the number of volunteers,” said Vansleve. “Nor are we seeing the same amount of giving. That is all going to affect the services we provide.”

Providers also worry that rising housing demand after the fires could force certain housing units for the homeless to close.

“I'm concerned that some of the sites that we work with to house folks may be too expensive to actually bring folks indoors,” said Ryan Smith, CEO of homeless services provider the St. Joseph Center in West L.A.

Volunteering for the count

During last year’s count, some volunteers reported confusion about a cumbersome volunteer registration system, confusing training materials, delays checking in at deployment sites and technical issues with the phone app used to coordinate the count.

In response to those concerns, LAHSA officials say they’ve updated processes this year to improve the volunteer experience.

Volunteers will now use a single website to register and access training, according to LAHSA. The agency said it streamlined the check-in process for volunteers to reduce waiting times, and the Homeless Count app has been updated to provide better navigation and tracking features to keep volunteers in their assigned census tracts.

This year’s count will take place over three days this week, beginning at 8 p.m. each evening.

• Tuesday, Feb. 18: Volunteers will tally the unhoused residents in much of the L.A. metro area, the San Fernando Valley, and the Santa Clarita Valley.
• Wednesday, Feb. 19: Volunteers will spread out throughout East Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley.
• Thursday, Feb. 20: The count will conclude with a focus on West L.A., South L.A., the Antelope Valley and the South Bay. 

People interested in volunteering can register and learn more at: theycountwillyou.org.

Big surf from distant hurricanes in the Pacific could bring coastal flooding to Southern California starting this weekend.

Hurricanes Polo and Odalys are expected to cause coastal erosion, flooding and high surf along Southern California's already battered coastline. Swells from Polo are expect to arrive as early as late Sunday and peak Monday and Tuesday.

Bryan Lewis, National Weather Service meteorologist, told LAist that high tides could reach 7 feet. He said Long Beach and Avalon are among the more vulnerable areas for potential flooding and erosion.

Long Beach and Los Angeles warned residents to prepare for potential flooding and other effects through at least Wednesday.

In early September, Hurricane Marie brought coastal erosion and flooding that led homes being red- and yellow-tagged in L.A. and Orange counties.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Friends & Family Flea, a new market from the team behind Maum Market, will make its debut Saturday in Koreatown. 

For organizer Arnold Byun, the launch is something of a homecoming. 

Nearly five years ago, Byun and his co-founder, Kioh Park, were living in Koreatown and spending months at Document Coffee Bar dreaming up what would eventually become Maum Market, the Asian makers market they launched in January 2022. The market now has a regular presence at ROW DTLA, where it hosts pop-up markets on Dock Street several times a year.

“The genesis of Maum Market is actually really embedded in Koreatown,” Byun, 31, told The LA Local. “And we have a lot of affection and personal history with Koreatown, so it’s a very personal thing for us just to return to our roots.” 

Most of the 24 vendors participating in the first Friends & Family Flea have some connection to Koreatown, Byun said. Some grew up in the neighborhood, some still live there and others have moved away but retain ties to the area. The vendor list includes apparel brands, artists, jewelry makers, beauty and wellness businesses and food vendors. 

“We’ve been trying to be pretty intentional about curating from the community as much as possible,” Byun said.

There will be plenty of food and shopping, including “sogeum-bbang,” or salt bread, tea, handmade candles, soaps and vintage clothing, as well as flash tattoos and burgers and fries from Love Hour. The LA Hwatu-Hanafuda Club will teach visitors about hwatu, the Korean deck of playing cards with roots in Japan. The club will also offer $5 tarot card readings.

Friends & Family Flea, a new market from the team behind Maum Market, will make its debut Saturday in Koreatown.

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Eena Cho, founder of the LA Hwatu-Hanafuda Club, was born and raised in Koreatown. She remembers living with her mother in an apartment on Wilshire Boulevard and Vermont Avenue and volunteering at the senior center near Seoul International Park, where she spent time with older Korean residents.

She also grew up playing go-stop with her grandparents during Korean holidays, like Chuseok and Seollal. 

“That was a big part of my childhood,” said Cho, 24. “Another part is that living in LA where there’s so many different groups of people together, I remember my best friend Maria growing up, she was Mexican, and we would be playmates because both of our parents were working overtime.”

For Cho, joining Friends & Family Flea felt like a natural fit.

“Koreatown is a beautiful diaspora of many different cultures,” Cho said. “And I think that makes Koreatown, Koreatown.”

Friends & Family Flea, a new market from the team behind Maum Market, will make its debut Saturday in Koreatown.

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Courtesy Eena Cho

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The local focus is a big part of what Byun hopes will distinguish Friends & Family from other flea markets and fairs. He said organizers wanted to create something that “intentionally celebrates a specific neighborhood,” in this case, Koreatown. 

For the Koreatown market, that also means highlighting small businesses beyond the restaurants that often get the most attention.

“It’s more about, you know, where do we get our dry cleaning, where do we get our shoes done, or these kinds of services that I think don’t get highlighted as often as maybe restaurants do, but are really core and essential parts of a community business,” Byun said.

Byun’s own history with Koreatown also makes the neighborhood an especially fitting place to start.

His family immigrated to the South Bay from Korea in 2002, when he was 6. He remembers coming to Koreatown with his parents on the weekends for Korean meals and grocery trips.

Byun still thinks of the neighborhood as a second home for Korean immigrants, while appreciating how its community has grown more diverse.

“I’m just really happy to see it become a really beloved neighborhood,” he said.

The market is also giving back locally. Hats sold at the event will benefit the Koreatown Youth and Community Center, Byun said.

And this may not be a one-time run. If Saturday goes well, organizers hope to bring Friends & Family Flea back to Koreatown on a monthly basis. They also plan to offer discounted vendor fees to Koreatown residents.

“I feel like there was so much opportunity for us to really hone in and create something more hyperlocal and also really embed ourselves in the community as well,” Byun said.

When I lived in the UK, I worked on a BBC television show about birding. It was a strange experience as I couldn’t exactly book guests — “Hello Mr. Sparrow, could you be on location for an interview at 2 p.m.?”

So instead I spent a lot of time with the crew climbing up mountains with a large tripod on my shoulder. Did you know there’s a bird in the Scottish Highlands whose plumage turns white in winter to blend in with the snow? (It’s called a ptarmigan. Don’t pronounce the p.)

But it did mean I was attuned to British bird calls. I could hear something and pronounce solemnly: “Ah yes, that’s a lark. And that one's a chaffinch."

Moving to LA meant learning a new set of bird calls

When I moved to the U.S., however, it was a whole other story. I really didn’t recognize any of the bird calls. They were all so different. I just shrugged and figured they were part of the backdrop. But one day recently, a woman told me about a free app and said it was life-changing. "Hmm, I’ll see about that," I thought.

Merlin bird app

It’s called Merlin, from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and it’s kind of like Shazam for bird calls. As in, you click it, and it tells you what bird song you can hear around you. When I opened it in my backyard for the first time, a whole orchestra of bird sounds opened up around me. I admit: it was kind of life-changing.

Of course it first picked up a crow, which I know only too well, given its loud, raucous sound. But then it identified a house finch. Huh. Who knew they were in my backyard? And as I listened closely, I realized … I knew that sound! It’s the first thing I hear when I wake up at dawn, lovely and melodic.

The house finch, awakening the day.

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Cornell Lab of Ornithology | Macaulay Library

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So now when I open my eyes in the morning, I say, "Good morning, house finch, communing with fellow beings alive on a vibrant California morning!" It kicks off my day, although I guess I’ve been reading too much Mary Oliver.

The backyard birds you're probably hearing right now

But then other birds I didn’t know would pop up on my phone during the day, with names as intriguing as their calls: the spotted towhee, the orange-crowned warbler, or Cassin’s kingbird.

I mean, they do realize they’re in a backyard in Los Angeles, not some estate in Georgian England? My favorite for a while was the dark-eyed junco. Now we’re talking romantic heroes. Imagine him slyly popping across the apple tree limbs to call to you. Dark-Eyed Junco, at your service.

Dark-eyed junco, at your service.

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Cornell Lab of Ornithology | Macaulay Library

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Meet Swinhoe's white-eye, a non-native bird spreading across SoCal

And then there’s Swinhoe’s white-eye. Which sounds a little like an eye ailment, but there you go. It’s a tiny bright yellow bird with a white ring around each eye. So cute! I first noticed them when there were a bazillion of them in a tree outside my house. It was such an unusual sight that I mentioned it to a woman walking her dog, and we stood there, oohing and aahing, until we both realized we’d oohed a little too much, and it was time to go.

Swinhoe's white-eyes are not native to SoCal, but are thriving.

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Cornell Lab of Ornithology | Macaulay Library

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When I researched them, I was surprised to find they’re not native to SoCal. They’re actually pretty new to the area. There were just a handful in Orange County 20 years ago, probably having been brought over from Asia as pets and escaped. And now, they’re thriving and have spread everywhere from Baja to San Luis Obispo. Who knows where they’ll end up next? If anyone sees a chartreuse cutie in New York, let me know. It'll probably be very tired.

Yes, you can see I’ve become slightly annoying with my newfound bird interest. I’ll be asking my family what they want for dinner, and I’ll say, “Wait, is that the spotted towhee?” and turn to my phone, and my teenager will wrest it out of my hand and say, “Mom, be in the present!” Which is right. But my morning serenade as the birds come online one by one and greet the new day — well, that’s as present as you can be.

Walk through the automatic doors at the Carson Library and you’ll see on your left a 1973 painting called "Dominoes" by John Riddle.

Riddle, a prominent Black artist, has worked in the L.A. County Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum, and has been collected by Jesse Jackson and Roberta Flack.

Riddle's work was previously owned by the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company in West Adams. Over two decades, the company’s art director, William Pajaud, an L.A. artist himself, carefully collected hundreds of pieces of Black art. Each piece in the collection, Pajaud said, would be a chapter telling the story of African Americans in the U.S. The collection included oil paintings, watercolors, and sculptures in clay, wood and metal.

When Golden State Mutual Life Insurance shut down, the company sold most of the best pieces at a private auction in 2007, with some selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars. L.A. County was able to acquire about 120 works, including Riddle's piece.

To keep the works accessible to the public and free of charge, county officials chose four public libraries and three community centers to show the work. Earlier this year, the county arts department created a new website with a map to make them easier to find. The locations include the Golden State Mutual historic building in West Adams, plus:
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Libraries

• Carson Library (Carson)
• A.C. Bilbrew Library (Willowbrook)
• Masao W. Satow Library (Gardena)
• View Park Bebe Moore Campbell Library (View Park/Windsor Hills)
  

Community centers:

• Curtis Tucker Behavioral Health Center Health Services (Inglewood)
• Willowbrook Senior Center Aging and Disabilities (Willowbrook)
• Mark Ridley-Thomas Behavioral Health Center Health Services (on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Medical Campus).

“All of these are county-owned spaces that are available, accessible to the public and to patrons to be able to live with the works, learn about the works, see the works, learn about the works,” said Kristin Sakoda, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture.

Dominoes by John Riddle. The painting was part of the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance collection but is now part of the Los Angeles County Civic Art Collection.

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As you walk past the checkout desk at the Carson Library, toward the teen section, you’ll see another remarkable piece from the county’s holdings. It’s a two-foot-tall sculpture made from one piece of mahogany. It’s called "The Embrace" by artist Elizabeth Catlett, whose work is in the collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, among many other institutions. Catlett depicted two people hugging, their faces and bodies fused together, their eyes looking at the viewer.

Detail of El Abrazo (The Embrace) by Elizabeth Catlett.

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In the auction catalogue for the Golden State Collection, Catlett wrote: “I still work figuratively, trying to express emotion through abstract form, color, line, and space. I attempt to reach out to ordinary people who have little or no experience or understanding of art principles, and extend to them what I may feel about a subject."

Ancestral Fragments by Stanley Wilson.

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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist

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Meanwhile at A.C. Bilbrew Library, north of Compton, there’s a piece by Charles White, who lived in L.A. County for decades and mentored many artists in the region. His paintings and drawings in the 1960s took on the issues of the Black Civil Rights Movement, and that led well-known Black Americans like Nat King Cole and Eartha Kitt to buy his art.

County officials are hopeful that the communities around these neighborhoods enjoy the art’s benefits, including “mental health, in our education, our youth development, our sense of inclusion and belonging,” Sakoda said.