The Brief

Los Angeles County’s unhoused population declined slightly for the second year in a row, according to authorities responsible for the region’s annual point-in-time homeless count.

Results of the 2025 event, released Monday, show homelessness dropped by 3.4% in the city of L.A. and by 4% countywide, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA. That includes the number of people in shelters and those sleeping outdoors.

Last year, LAHSA reported smaller declines over the previous year in both the city and county — 2.2% and less than 1% (.27%), respectively.

Prior to that, the numbers had been trending upward since 2018.

LAHSA said several factors contributed to the reductions, including the clearing of encampments throughout the region, and nearly 28,000 people being placed into permanent housing last year — a record high.

Mayor Karen Bass speaks at a press conference before LAHSA's annual homeless count at El Rio Community School on Feb. 18, 2025 in Los Angeles.

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“These results aren’t just data points — they represent thousands of human beings who are now inside, and neighborhoods that are beginning to heal,” L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement. “This Point in Time Count makes one thing clear: change is possible when we refuse to accept encampments as normal and refuse to leave people behind.”

Va Lecia Adams Kellum, CEO of LAHSA, said during a news conference Monday that the lower numbers of unsheltered unhoused people are a direct result of the city and county’s work with clearing encampments.

“ Over the last two years, our leaders came together to bring people inside, and their efforts have paid off,” she said.

" We've made real progress toward ending homelessness, and we cannot let that momentum falter now," she continued. "The dear people on our streets are relying on us, and we must continue to focus on bringing them inside."

Elected officials react 

Most city and county officials are cautiously optimistic about L.A.’s homeless count data, but they say the numbers of people experiencing homelessness are unacceptably high.

“Nobody should see these results and think our job is done,” said L.A. City Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky. “We’re still in a crisis, but for the first time in a long time, we’re seeing the tide start to turn. We’ve learned a lot over the past few years about what it takes to resolve encampments and get people housed for good."

“This proves that when we focus resources on the things that work, we get results,” she continued. “Now we need to double down and do it faster.”

L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said the region needs to make more investments toward solving the crisis.

"At this pace, it would take three centuries to end homelessness in Los Angeles County,” she told LAist in a statement.

L.A. City Council members noted there were some doubts about the accuracy of the data. A recent report by the RAND Corporation suggested LAHSA had systemically undercounted homelessness in some parts of the city during last year’s count in January 2024. Last month, LAist reported that LAHSA removed more volunteer observations when reconciling data in 2024 than they had in previous years.

L.A. Councilmember John Lee, who represents the Northwest San Fernando Valley, told LAist there are questions about how the homeless count numbers are validated and ultimately reported.

“When there’s this much at stake, accuracy matters and we can’t afford to make decisions based on data that may not reflect what’s actually happening on the ground,” he said in a statement. “Until we have a more reliable and consistent system of reporting, it’s difficult to fully trust that the numbers we’re seeing are telling the whole story.”

LAHSA and city leaders say the data may not always reflect the reality of every block or every street, but it remains a useful estimate of homelessness throughout the region. And that estimate is trending downward.

L.A. Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson said the city’s efforts are working.

“I find it interesting that the folks who question the numbers this year did not have the same energy when the numbers were trending upwards, no one interrogated that data,” Harris-Dawson said in a statement. “Detractors root for failure.”

Councilmember Nithya Raman, chair of the city’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, told LAist the results reflect the reality she’s seen experienced in her district, which includes parts of Silver Lake and the San Fernando Valley.

“ The reality is that the count — if it is imperfect — is imperfect in the same way each year, and it is really meant to be a tracker of our progress over time,” Raman said.

She continued:  “I'm really encouraged by the progress that we're making after years of increases, sometimes double digit increases.”

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass at a news conference from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s Welcome Navigation Center.

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Reaction from nonprofit leaders

Officials within the organizations that support unhoused Angelenos were pleased with the numbers but acknowledged the challenges ahead, particularly the loss of federal money that pays for housing vouchers and other services.

Peter Laugharn, president of the nonprofit Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, said systemic problems are still forcing people onto the streets.

“ Unaffordable housing is still a leading cause of first-time homelessness, and decades of economic and racial inequities continue to shape who is the most vulnerable,” he said.

Katie Hill, CEO of Union Station Homeless Services, said was concerned that the end of COVID-era federal programs, like emergency housing vouchers, would make her organization’s work more difficult.

“ The resources that made [the decline in homelessness] possible are drying up or being reduced and, in the next couple of years, we will see it's not going to be the same trend,” she told LAist. “ We need to prepare ourselves as a region, as a community to have to pick up the pieces and expect that there will be more homelessness.”

Stephanie Klasky-Gamer, president of LA Family Housing, agreed.

“ Without that type of investment, as we saw in ‘25 and in ‘24, I fear that we're going to shift from this positive trend in the years ahead,” she told LAist.

More on the results 

In February, LAHSA and its volunteers counted more than 43,500 unhoused people in the city of L.A. and more than 72,000 in the county during this year’s annual tally. Those totals include people in shelters and on the streets.

The vast majority of unhoused people in the city of L.A. are living on the street rather than in homeless shelters.

For the second year in a row, that population decreased substantially. It fell by 7.9% this year, LAHSA said, and by 17.5% over the past two years. (There were 26,972 unsheltered people living in the city in February, down from 32,680 two years ago.)

Meanwhile, the number of people in the city of L.A. living in “interim housing,” or shelter, increased 4.7%. This year, LAHSA counted 16,727 people in the city of L.A. living in shelters, motel rooms and tiny homes. That’s up from 15,977 last year.

This year, the count showed fewer people living in tents and other makeshift shelters in the city of L.A. There were 13.5% fewer vehicles and tents used as shelter compared to the previous year.

The agency credits efforts like the city’s Inside Safe and county’s Pathway Home programs for moving people off of the streets. Both programs clear encampments and offer people temporary shelter with a path to possible permanent housing.

More permanent housing became available last year, LAHSA said. There were about 2,960 new apartments provided in 2024. But that was far short of an estimated 485,000 affordable homes needed.

Why the count is important

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, requires local governments to conduct a full census of the region’s unhoused population every other year.

L.A. County has been doing a count annually since 2015, except in 2021 when it was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

LAHSA’s annual count is the largest of its kind in the country and involves coordinating thousands of volunteers who go out in groups over three nights to tally people and dwellings in more than 3,000 census subtracts.

The annual point-in-time count is typically held in late January, but this year’s count was postponed a month because of the wildfires, which were still burning in the Palisades and Altadena at the time.

LAHSA officials said they made that decision to avoid jeopardizing the safety of volunteers or the accuracy of the count, as many people were displaced from their homes or normal routines. Several wildfire-impacted areas were counted by special teams of LAHSA employees, rather than volunteers.

The delay helped depress volunteer turnout this year, LAHSA and public officials said. About 10% fewer people signed up compared with last year’s count. Some who registered this year did not show up after LAHSA moved the count back by a few weeks.

But officials at the agency said they do not believe the disaster affected the quality of the data.

This was the first year 100% of the data from the count was entered digitally, through the Esri app, and signed off by the people doing the counting, according to LAHSA. Last year, problems with the app and shifting policies for reconciling data collected through the app and data collected on paper forms led to questions about accuracy.

LAHSA representatives said the methodology for gathering the date hasn’t changed, but the tools have. Authorities said the agency is committed to producing the most accurate homeless count possible.

For the first time, LAHSA released preliminary raw data for this year’s homeless count in March, much earlier than in previous counts. The move came a week before the L.A. County Board of Supervisors was scheduled to vote on whether to pull funding from the regional agency.

LAHSA spokesperson Paul Rubenstein told the agency’s commissioners in April that it was important for stakeholders to have the early data “as they were considering significant shifts to the system.”

“Last year was not a statistical anomaly,” Rubenstein said. “The path we were on was getting us where we wanted to go.”

Adams Kellum celebrated the early results at the time.

“When I first came to LAHSA, I publicly stated that we wanted to reduce unsheltered homelessness within three years.

“We’ve done it in two.”

Criticism of LAHSA

Federal Judge David O. Carter, who is currently overseeing a major legal settlement on homelessness, said he saw the release of unverified numbers from the count as “political gamesmanship.”

“My view is that they're in a political battle for their lives right now,” Carter said.

Times have been tough for LAHSA in recent years. The agency faced fierce criticism after a county audit last year and a March report commissioned by Carter, both of which found the agency had failed to properly track spending and hold vendors accountable.

Those findings prompted the L.A. County Board of Supervisors to vote in April to shift hundreds of millions in taxpayer funding for homeless services away from LAHSA and create a new county homelessness department to eventually administer the funds itself.

The city is weighing a similar move.

Days after the county pulled out of LAHSA, Adams Kellum announced her resignation as CEO. Adams Kellum, a Bass ally, has led the organization since 2023.

Even though LAHSA’s role is being reduced, the agency remains tasked with overseeing the annual homeless count. However, Adams Kellum told the agency’s commissioners last month LAHSA may not have enough funding to do a proper count next year, because of city of L.A. budget cuts and the recent county funding decision.

“We anticipate that the current allocations will not provide enough funding for LAHSA to conduct an unsheltered count in 2026,” she said.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Jude Bellingham scored two goals 98 seconds apart, Harry Kane converted a penalty when England was down to 10 men, and the Three Lions handed Mexico its first World Cup loss at Estadio Azteca, a wild 3-2 victory on Sunday night to reach the quarterfinals.

England moves on to face Norway on Saturday in Miami Gardens, Florida, for a spot in the semifinals.

Bellingham stunned the crowd of more than 80,000 at a venue where Mexico was unbeaten in 10 World Cup matches, including three this year, when he scored on a header in the 36th minute and again in the 38th on a pass from Kane.

Julián Quiñones scored for El Tri in the 42nd minute, and the game appeared to turn in Mexico’s favor when England’s Jarell Quansah was sent off in the 54th for a dangerous foul on Jesús Gallardo.

But England was awarded a penalty for a challenge by Mexico goalkeeper Raúl Rangel, and Kane converted for his sixth goal of this tournament and 14th of his World Cup career, matching Gerd Müller of West Germany for fifth on the scoring list. Kane has six goals in this tournament, one behind Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé and Erling Haaland in the Golden Boot race.

Kane then committed a foul that made him the first player since at least 1966 to score and concede a penalty in a World Cup game. Raúl Jiménez converted the kick with a stutter-step approach to move El Tri within 3-2.

Mexico attacked relentlessly over the final 21 minutes, plus 11 minutes of stoppage time, but goalkeeper Jordan Pickford and England's defenders held steady.

Mexico has not reached the quarterfinals since hosting in 1986. Since then, it has lost in the round of 16 eight times, failed to advance past the group stage in 2022 and was disqualified from the 1990 tournament.

Billy Gene Mills, one of the first Black politicians elected to the L.A. City Council, died on June 27 in his Leimert Park home. He was 96.

In a social media post, his son James Edward Mills wrote that his father had been struggling with failing health for years.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement Mills "helped shape the arc of justice and opportunity in our city."

Mills was the first Black American to graduate from UCLA Law School in 1954 and went on to work as a civil rights attorney.

Los Angeles City Council members Gilbert Lindsay (left), Billy Mills (second from left) and Tom Bradley (second from right), pose for a photo with two unidentified men in City Hall council chambers around 1965.

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He was elected to the city council in 1963, representing District 8, and served until 1974. Mills was one of the first three Black men, along with Tom Bradley and Gilbert Lindsay, to join the city council.

While on the council, Mills “led the city to renewed unity and cooperation after the tumultuous Watts Riots,” UCLA wrote in a statement that accompanied a Public Service Award given to him in 2003. His tenure, UCLA noted, saw the installation of paved alleys and streetlights throughout South Los Angeles for the first time.

In 1974, Mills was appointed as a judge to the Los Angeles Superior Court by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan.

Mills is survived by five children, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

SEATTLE — Folarin Balogun, the star striker of the U.S. men's national soccer team, is eligible to play in the FIFA World Cup Round of 16 game against Belgium on Monday.

In an unusual move, FIFA's Disciplinary Committee announced Sunday that it would suspend Balogun's one-game red card ban for a probationary period of one year, allowing him to play in any remaining World Cup games.

In a brief statement, the committee did not give a reason for delaying the suspension. Balogun's probationary period will be revoked and the one-game suspension enforced if he commits "another infringement of a similar nature and gravity," FIFA said.

Balogun received the red card last Wednesday during the 2-0 U.S. victory over Bosnia-Herzegovina in the Round of 32 match. He had stepped on the ankle of Bosnian defender Tarik Muharemović as the two tangled while going after the ball.

The main referee initially declined to call any foul on the play, but after a replay review of slow-motion video and stills, a video referee recommended a red card. Afterward, U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino criticized the decision to grant a red, calling the contact "a normal action in football that happened by accident."

U.S. Soccer had not filed a formal appeal. But a spokesperson told reporters Sunday that the organization had been "engaged" with FIFA during the deliberations.

In a statement, U.S. Soccer said it would accept the decision and is pleased Balogun will be eligible to play. "Our full attention is focused on the Round of 16 match against Belgium in Seattle, and we look forward to the continued support of our amazing fans," the statement read.

"Thank you to FIFA for doing what was right, and reversing a great injustice!" President Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

The team learned of the decision on Sunday morning while riding a bus to a training session in Seattle.

"I'm mostly just happy for him, seeing that smile on his face. He deserves to be playing in this game," said U.S. winger Christian Pulisic, who called the referee's decision to give Balogun a red card "extremely harsh."

The decision to delay a one-game red card suspension is highly unusual, although there had been precedent already at this World Cup. Portugal star Cristiano Ronaldo received a three-game suspension last November for elbowing an opponent in a World Cup qualifying match. That suspension would have caused him to miss the first two games of the World Cup, but FIFA's Disciplinary Committee put the suspension on hold and allowed him to play.

It is unclear what factors may have led FIFA to allow Balogun to play.

Rules governing the use of VAR, or video assistant referee, say that slow-motion replay should only be used for "facts," such as the point of contact for physical fouls or handball calls, while normal-speed video should be used to judge the "intensity" of an offense.

However, on Wednesday, the video referee reviewed slow-motion footage and still images before recommending a red card.

Balogun's demeanor was notably calm and respectful after the controversial call. He shook hands with the referee after the game, and speaking to reporters on Friday, he said the contact had been unintentional but that he accepted the referee's decision.

"I never want to react out of anger and out of emotion," Balogun said. "There's still lots of people we're inspiring, little kids, boys and girls who are watching. We have to show the correct way to handle things even when you think it's unjust."

On Sunday, Pulisic told reporters he was impressed by how his teammate had handled himself. "Good things happen to people like that. And he was so positive and all for the team, and it just feels right," Pulisic said.

Monday's Round of 16 match against Belgium is one of the biggest in the history of the U.S. men's national team. A win would send the U.S. to the quarterfinals, matching the deepest run by the American men in the modern era of the World Cup.

Copyright 2026 NPR

The La Brea Tar Pits are heading into a multimillion-dollar renovation — that means the museum will have to close to the public for two years.

The history

Built in 1977, the George C. Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits has a special place in the hearts of Angelenos who’ve ever taken a field trip to see its massive mastodon skeletons or dire wolf skulls. Don’t worry — all that stuff is staying, said museum educator Kay Lai.

Why now?

“This museum, as beloved as it is, definitely needs that refresh. And I’m really excited for the next generation of kids that get to grow up and make new memories here with this new space,” Lai told LAist.

What’s going to be new?

Lai said the museum refresh will include a new focus on Zed, an 80% complete Columbian mammoth found at the site. With new outdoor classrooms and a 1-kilometer pedestrian pathway that will take visitors past excavation sites, the idea is to make research more visible to the public.