The Brief

Homelessness went up in Los Angeles this year following two previous years of declines, according to official homeless count findings released Friday.

The population of people living outdoors in the city of L.A. grew by 7.9% between early 2025 and 2026, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA.

When including people in shelters, a total of 45,194 people were living either outside, in vehicles and tents, or in homeless shelters.

The total homelessness count was up 3.4% in the city of L.A. Across L.A. County, the overall homeless population increased more slightly, by 1.2%, to 73,040, while unsheltered homelessness rose by 3.3% countywide.

The city and county overall upticks are within the count's margin of error and not considered "statistically significant," LAHSA said.

The findings are a setback for the region — especially for L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, who is campaigning for reelection against City Councilmember Nithya Raman and frequently touts prior declines in the homeless counts as evidence her approach is working.

Bass, who took office at the end of 2022 and set addressing homelessness as her top priority, was not at the homeless count news conference Friday — a departure from the previous three years.

She released a video message ahead of the news briefing:

The latest count took place in January of this year. The prior count was in February of last year, following a delay due to the January 2025 wildfires. The city’s unsheltered population grew to about 29,000, after previously dropping a total of 17.5% across the first two years of counts in Bass’ mayoral term.

Meanwhile, the city’s sheltered population — people living in group shelters, hotel rooms and tiny homes — declined to around 16,000 at the time of the count.

Local officials expressed frustration over the results.

“It felt like we had turned a corner these past few years and this latest count feels like a setback,” said L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn.

“This year’s numbers are disappointing, but not surprising,” said a statement from Councilmember Nithya Raman, who has chaired the city council’s homelessness committee for the last several years and is running for mayor against Bass.

“Leadership at City Hall has not shown the willingness to shift toward an approach that actually moves people into permanent housing,” she added. “These results make clear that the Mayor’s approach is not working well enough.”

A dramatic lead-up to the count’s release

In an unusual move, Bass acknowledged that L.A.’s numbers had gone up before the count’s official release. She responded to a report late Wednesday by Fox 11 citing anonymous sources who had been briefed on the findings. On Friday, Gita O’Neill, LAHSA’s interim CEO, said the results were “leaked to media early.”

In statements earlier this week, Bass blamed the local increase in homelessness on a range of factors, primarily state funding cuts she said led to fewer permanent housing placements and some federal policy changes she said worsened the affordability crisis and caused instability.

“For two years straight, we drove down homelessness by historic margins — but as expected, last year our efforts ultimately couldn’t keep up with policies and funding cuts at the federal and state levels that pushed more people onto the streets,” Bass said in a statement.

Last year, the city and county’s homeless populations dropped by 3.4% and 4%, respectively. The 2024 count also showed a decline — those numbers were smaller and within the count’s margin of error.

L.A.’s homeless count doesn’t provide a complete picture of homelessness year-round. It doesn’t include people who are couch surfing or living doubled up with others, people staying in motels on their own dime, or those inside hospitals and jails.

The point-in-time census — conducted by LAHSA across a few nights in January — provides a data snapshot. Local officials use it to gauge year-to-year fluctuations and it also helps the federal government determine how millions of dollars in federal homelessness grants flow.

That could be especially important this year, after the Trump administration suspended LAHSA from federal homelessness funding while it investigates alleged mismanagement by the agency. LAHSA sued to undo that federal freeze, with a hearing scheduled in U.S. District Court on Aug. 6.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass waits to speak during a news conference in Los Angeles.

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Mario Tama

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Getty Images

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How we got here

Los Angeles has long been the epicenter of U.S. homelessness. The city’s unhoused population began surging about a decade ago — years before the national count did, and is now up 59% since 2016.

The crisis also peaked in L.A. before the rest of the country. L.A.’s unhoused population crested in 2023. At a single point in time that year, 1 in 83 city residents were experiencing homelessness — 1.2% of the city's population or roughly six times the national rate, according to LAHSA and U.S. Census data.

Nationwide, the unhoused population count continued climbing for another year, reaching a record high in 2024 of 1 in 435 U.S. residents, or roughly 0.23% of the population, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.

That year, the city was home to just over 1% of the nation’s total population, but nearly 6% of its unhoused population.

As L.A.’s unhoused population multiplied, so did the taxpayer spending.

Voters in the city and county have repeatedly approved tax measures related to homelessness, adding billions of public dollars aimed at the crisis.

Together, Measure H, passed in 2017, Measure ULA, passed in 2022, and Measure A, passed in 2024, have increased city and county resources by about $6 billion. That's on top of Measure HHH, a $1.2 billion bond voters approved in 2016 to build supportive housing.

In 2016, the city of Los Angeles budgeted about $139 million a year to address homelessness. By 2026, the city's annual homelessness budget has grown to nearly $1 billion, alongside growing L.A. County homelessness dollars.

Funding for LAHSA, a joint city-county homelessness agency, grew ten-fold since 2016 to more than $800 million.

While funding sources fluctuated, LAHSA revenues increased in the budget years preceding this year’s homeless count, according to LAHSA’s audited financial statements.

Between 2016 and 2025, the L.A. region’s homeless services system roughly doubled in size from about 34,500 beds to about 69,600, according to HUD's housing inventory reports for the region.

Officials and experts have attributed much of L.A.’s homelessness to a housing affordability crisis in which rent has become more unaffordable to people making very low incomes. L.A.’s expanded shelter system has not kept pace with the number of people falling into homelessness.

LAHSA says the number of newly unhoused people seeking services each year has grown 30% between 2022 and 2025.

For every person housed by the homeless services system over the past year, about 2.3 newly unhoused people sought out services, LASHA said.

While in office, Bass has pursued a “housing first” strategy focused on relocating unhoused people from tent and RV encampments into hotel rooms and other shelter settings.

That approach, which includes Bass’ signature Inside Safe program, helped move thousands of tents and people off the street and in hotel rooms, but costs three times as much as other shelter options, according to a city analysis.

About 41% of the people who’ve participated in the program since it began have returned to homelessness, according to LAHSA’s Inside Safe data dashboard. Bass defends the program, but has said it needs to reduce costs.

L.A. City and county leaders expanded the L.A. homelessness response system primarily by adding fast, short-term solutions like emergency shelter beds and temporary rental subsidies. They lagged behind, in comparison, on permanent supportive housing, service providers said.

The number of people permanently housed by the system declined from about 28,600 in 2024 to 23,532 last year, according to data provided by LAHSA Friday.

Placements into shelter and permanent supportive housing went down this year, while the number of people returning to the streets after being in shelter went up.

Family homelessness decreased by 14%, according to LAHSA’s data, but the agency said that likely reflects a recent decline in the supply of family resources, not demand.

LAHSA also broke findings down by region. The Metro LA area, which includes Skid Row, saw its unsheltered population rise by about 20%, the agency found. Eastern L.A. County, including East LA, Southeast LA and several Gateway cities, saw a similar increase. In the Antelope Valley region, unsheltered homelessness dropped 37%.

Tents for unhoused people are seen on a Skid Row sidewalk.

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Frederic J. Brown

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AFP via Getty Images

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Follow the money 

Los Angeles homelessness officials said even with increased local spending, much of the current system has relied on state and federal dollars, including one-time pandemic dollars.

Dips and changes in those funding sources had consequences for this year’s count, they said.

Bass said reductions last year to the state of California’s Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention grant program, known as HHAP, “severely impacted our work to keep people housed and get more Angelenos off the streets.”

Bass did not respond to multiple interview requests by LAist seeking comment on the latest homeless count results.

In the 2024-25 budget year, state funding made up just under $115 million, or 13% of LAHSA's overall budget. Then, in 2025-26, those sources of state funding dropped 26% to about $85 million, or 9% of the agency's budget, according to LAHSA reports.

But LAHSA's overall budget held roughly flat. Decreases in state funding were largely made up for by year-over-year increases in city and federal dollars.

LAHSA officials said during Friday’s presentation that this year’s increase in homelessness reflects major cuts to a rental-subsidy program it administers known as Time Limited Subsidies, or TLS. The agency also cited drops in state revenue.

The program provides up to two years of rental assistance to formerly unhoused people in private-market apartments, relying on a mix of county, city, federal and state dollars.

Funding for L.A.’s time-limited subsidies declined by nearly half before this year's homeless count — from $240 million in 2024-25 to $123 million in 2025-26, according to LAHSA figures presented to the L.A. City Council.

More than 3,000 households housed through the program about a year ago were slated to lose those subsidies by the end of last month.

 "When our unhoused neighbors lost access to rental subsidies, the system slowed, interim shelters stayed full, and progress stalled," said Paul Rubenstein, LAHSA chief of staff.

Local service providers told LAist they saw deep cuts to their time-limited subsidy programs.

“Without these subsidies, people are staying in shelters longer because they cannot secure housing, reducing available shelter capacity and leaving more individuals with nowhere to go but the streets,” said Jennifer Hark Dietz, CEO of PATH.

Trump administration pressure

Regional officials and service providers also say federal policies, funding cuts and proposed cuts are also driving L.A.’s homelessness crisis — and could make it worse.

“The Trump administration's reckless policies threaten to deepen the homelessness crisis by prioritizing tax breaks and benefits for the wealthiest Americans and corporations while cutting programs that working families and vulnerable residents rely on,” L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis said.

A Bass spokesperson echoed the sentiment in a statement to LAist: “Rising gas prices, healthcare costs, tariffs, and grocery bills — that puts more people at risk of homelessness.”

Local officials also point out the federal government is actively trying to reduce the level of funding that can go toward permanent housing in L.A. and nationwide.

Meanwhile, the full effects of many of the federal policy changes local officials are worried about have yet to kick in, experts said.

“We could start seeing homelessness increase again in the near future primarily because of harmful federal changes to basic need programs like Medi-Cal, CalFresh, and changes in HUD programs — all which will make it even more difficult for individuals and families to afford their homes,” said Monica Davalos, an analyst with the California Budget & Policy Center.

L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said the homeless count results are just one data point, not the whole picture.

“People experiencing homelessness — and the communities impacted by this crisis — care less about esoteric debates over the numbers,” Horvath said. “They care more about what they see on our streets.“

"Housing production, affordability, and supportive services are the biggest drivers of lasting change, and getting people housed permanently is the change L.A. needs," she added.

The West Hollywood City Council will consider a motion Monday evening that thwarts long-planned and nearly shovel-ready protected bike lanes along Fountain Avenue out of concerns that the cyclist improvements will eliminate too much street parking.

The motion was introduced by West Hollywood City Councilmember Lauren Meister. If passed, it would direct staff to evaluate an alternative design for Fountain Avenue, one that maintains the road’s existing parking capacity, reduces the road to one travel lane in each direction and adds a center turn lane — but doesn’t include protected bike lanes.

“Continued investment in bicycle infrastructure elsewhere would remain a separate consideration,” according to a copy of the motion. 

Meister did not respond to LAist’s requests for comment about her motion.

The project 

Introducing protected bike lanes to Fountain Avenue was approved by City Council in 2025 as part of the first phase of the Fountain Avenue Streetscape Project.

The approved designs include reducing the road to one travel lane in each direction, installing pedestrian improvements and creating a bike lane separated from vehicular traffic by concrete curbs.

The goal of the road redesign is to increase safety. Between 2013 and 2024, there were 35 collisions resulting in severe injuries and five fatal collisions, according to the city. Last year, Blake Ackerman, a 27-year-old attorney, died while biking on Fountain Avenue in a hit-and-run collision. 

But to make room for the reimagined Fountain Avenue, city staff said they would need to remove 60% of the road’s street parking. To mitigate that loss, city staff has suggested allowing residents with parking permits to use nearby parking lots.

Although it was ultimately approved, the issue caused disagreement among the five members of the City Council. Two voted against it — Meister and West Hollywood Mayor John Heilman.

The election

The future of Fountain Avenue has been a political issue at play in recent city elections, and this year is no different.

Meister and Heilman are termed out, and there are three seats on West Hollywood City Council up for grabs. 14 candidates are vying for a spot, and their views on the bike lane debate are front and center.

Incumbent Chelsea Byers, who is an advocate for the protected bike lanes, is running to retain her seat.

Several candidates have spoken out against Fountain Avenue’s planned bike lanes, including Kyle Brazeal.

Brazeal has earned the endorsements of Meister and Heilman. He told LAist he isn’t against bike lanes and believes there are other West Hollywood streets that are better candidates for cycling infrastructure.

The timeline

West Hollywood officials said construction for the first phase, including the protected bike lanes, is scheduled to begin before the end of 2026. That schedule would change if the City Council decides to pursue an alternative design.

Officials said in a report that changing the project’s scope could “jeopardize” the nearly $5 million in state grant funding it’s planned to use for construction.

City staff said in the report that if the motion is approved, it would seek clarity on how any design changes would impact grant funding and if the city would need to find alternative funding sources.

Topline:

Joseph Hawkins, former director of ONE Archives at the USC Libraries, the largest LGBTQ+ repository, joined AirTalk, LAist’s daily news program, to talk about the legacy and current state of these spaces.

Economic woes: As the story goes with a lot of local businesses right now, gay and lesbian bars are suffering the same economic challenges due to rising costs and a decline in alcohol consumption.

“Masses of people who can go to a bar and sustain it over a long period of time has become more and more difficult,” Hawkins said. "Some bars don't have the clientele that they used to because of the internet."

Tony in Anaheim called into AirTalk and shared a funny story about showing up embarrassingly early (8 p.m.) for a night out at the Abbey in West Hollywood, but ultimately remembered it as a safe place to make friends after moving to Los Angeles.

Jeff in Palm Springs called in to say bars in his city seem to be thriving thanks to an older population and tourists.

Hawkins said there may be a silver lining in the shift we're seeing.

"Maybe we're not losing gay bars; what we're doing is opening up other spaces where gay people can be included," he said.

Listen to the full conversation above for more history and insight.