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.

Public health officials are urging people to be wary of flea-borne typhus after a recent outbreak of the illness.

The outbreak in late July was centered in the Pico-Union neighborhood of Los Angeles. The L.A. County Department of Public Health said five people were hospitalized; all recovered.

The outbreak comes as typhus cases continue to tick up in L.A. County.

Cases have been increasing fairly steadily for more than a decade, but they nearly doubled over the last three years. The Public Health Department logged a record 220 cases in 2025, and officials say this year is on track to exceed that.

Public health officials say the increase is likely because human-animal interactions are also increasing. That could be due to human population expansions into areas with more animals, available food sources for wildlife in populated areas or more people owning pets.

The bacteria that causes typhus is transmitted from animals to humans through fleas.

Typhus can’t be passed from one human to another, and public health experts say the illness is completely treatable, especially if it’s caught early.

Outbreaks and how to prevent them

Most of the time, typhus cases are spread out across L.A. County. But sometimes, there’s a localized spread over a short period of time that turns into an outbreak.

Public health officials respond to a few of them in L.A. County each year.

Generally, outbreaks are triggered by high concentrations of host animals.

“Wherever these animals may be present or wherever they may be congregating, in those areas we can see an increase in the number of human infections,” said Dr. Aiman Halai with the L.A. County Department of Public Health.

The most common hosts for typhus are rats, opossums and free-roaming cats. When people or pets come in contact with host animals, they can pick up the infected fleas and bring them into homes, spreading them to other people and animals in the process.

Halai says a variety of factors can attract animals and lead to an outbreak, including overflowing dumpsters, overgrown vegetation or a well-meaning neighbor feeding local critters.

You can help prevent outbreaks by securing trash in bins, making sure food isn’t left outside, and ensuring pets are on up-to-date flea control medication. Cutting back overgrown vegetation and blocking off crawl spaces can eliminate places where animals can shelter in and around homes.

Halai also says it’s important not to feed wildlife.

Should you be worried?

Although public health experts are wary of the typhus uptick in L.A. County, the 220 cases recorded in 2025 in L.A. County are not overly concerning.

"That’s a very  low rate at the population level,” said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor of infectious diseases at USC’s Keck School of Medicine.

Typhus is an acute infection caused by bacteria known as Rickettsia typhi. Variations of the bacteria also cause other illnesses transmitted by fleas, ticks, lice and mites, including tick-borne Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

Doctors can test for typhus fairly easily, and it is treatable with antibiotics. Symptoms are similar to the flu, and can include fever, headaches, muscle aches and nausea. It can also cause rashes in some cases.

Most infections are mild, but they can cause hospitalization and, in rare cases, can be fatal.

Klausner said the concern is that testing for typhus is not always routine.

“The most important thing is that when patients come in to their doctor — and they have fever, they may have a rash, they may have headache, may have muscle or joint aches — that the doctor's thinking about potentially flea-borne infectious diseases because the treatment can be different,” Klausner said.

The best treatment for typhus is the antibiotic doxycycline. If a patient with typhus gets another type of antibiotic like penicillin or amoxicillin, the treatment may not be as successful.

According to Klausner, when presented with flu-like symptoms, it’s also a good idea for patients to tell their doctors if they’ve been around animals, spent time in an encampment or even just gone on a hike.

Topline:

Why it matters: The small amphibian is found in the grasslands of Southern California and the Central Valley. But habitat loss, urban sprawl and longer droughts have been threatening the species’ population in recent decades.

What the protections do: Now that the Western spadefoot is a candidate for permanent protections, any development project planned for Western spadefoot habitats will have to take the amphibians into account.

Some exceptions may apply: The commission did carve out exceptions for solar projects in the Central Valley. To take advantage of federal tax credit deadlines, some projects can continue to be built, as long as they protect breeding pools and curtail construction during the season when spadefoots are most active.

What conservationists say: Brendan Cummings, conservation director with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in Southern California the biggest threat to the Western spadefoot is not solar development: “It’s warehouses or data centers and road widenings and all manner of construction activities.”

What happens next: The California Department of Fish and Wildlife will conduct a year-long review to determine if the Western spadefoot should be permanently protected.

More than two dozen California Assembly Democrats and one state senator sent a letter Wednesday to legislative leaders asking them to delay fees under SB 54, the state’s landmark plastic reduction law, for two years — an eleventh-hour push as the Legislature hurtles toward the end of session.

The letter, addressed to Senate President Pro Tempore Monique Limón and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, was signed by 23 Assemblymembers and Sen. Melissa Hurtado. It asks lawmakers to pause fee assessment and collection this year and next, commit to a “reform package” next session, and increase legislative oversight of the program going forward.

The request lands amid a broader fight over how the plastics law is rolling out. Little by little California is demanding that the packages you pick up at your doorstep or at the store contain less plastic. A law Gov. Gavin Newsom signed four years ago aims to phase out 25% of non-recyclable, non-compostable plastic by 2032.

To get there, the state tasked a nonprofit, the Circular Action Alliance, with drafting a plan to meet the state goals. The group estimated the work would cost $17.2 billion over five years – and is asking for a three-year exemption from the source-reduction deadline.

But as the state moves to implement the law, questions are mounting over how the organization calculates the fees producers — and eventually consumers — will pay, and how much oversight the group actually faces.

Industry groups say the price tag for complying with the law could be tens of billions of dollars higher than California originally estimated. An industry-commissioned study found the law could cost consumers three times what the state projected — between $683 and $948 a year, rather than $190.

That means groceries, shampoo bottles and other consumer goods packed in plastic could cost a little more as the law takes effect.

The California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, which oversees implementation, declined an interview but said in a written statement that the law puts consumers first and pushes producers to design packaging with recycling in mind.

“Californians are facing rising costs and pollution from increasingly complex packaging that wasn’t designed for the recycling systems local governments, ratepayers, and the state developed and funded over the past four decades,” said CalRecycle director Zoe Heller. “The law’s rollout is a dial, not a switch, giving producers flexibility to redesign packaging, invest in recycling systems, reduce single-use plastics, and make adjustments along the way,” she added.

Watching the watchers

The Circular Action Alliance published its fee schedule in June, spelling out what each producer owes into the system. The fees could add up to more than $10 million for some businesses, according to the Dairy Institute of California. The Dairy Institute is a trade association that represents milk processors and dairy product manufacturers.

But unlike a state agency, the Circular Action Alliance answers to almost no one, said Katie Davey, executive director of the Dairy Institute.

“[The alliance] does not have to go through an audit by the state auditor. They’re not subject to the (California open government law) Brown Act. They’re not subject to public records requests. The Legislature does not approve their budget and does not approve how many employees they need, or how many fees they can charge,” Davey said.

As a private nonprofit, Circular Action Alliance indeed is not subject to the Brown Act or public-records law — but records it submits to CalRecycle or other government entities may be.

CalRecycle must approve its fee schedule and implementation plan, and has the authority to audit the organization’s performance, said CalRecycle spokesperson Lance Klug, who added that the plastics law includes provisions to ensure the group’s budget and fees are appropriate.

The alliance’s role “is not to set California policy,” said its spokesperson, Larine Urbina. “Our role is to implement the framework established by SB 54 under CalRecycle’s oversight.”

Davey said the gap extends to enforcement. Businesses that fall short will face so-called malus fees, which fund bonuses for those that comply. But the Circular Action Alliance hasn’t said what those fees will be.

Shane Gusman, a lobbyist for the Teamsters, which represents hundreds of thousands of California workers, raised similar concerns. “They’re a wholly independent nonprofit organization that has no oversight. That’s part of the problem.” The union backed the plastics law hoping it would boost jobs; Guzman now says the fees could affect workers too.

Shortly after the alliance published its fee schedule, Davey and a coalition of industry leaders — including the California Restaurant Association, the California League of Food Producers, the American Forest and Paper Association and the Print Creative Alliance — commissioned a study disputing CalRecycle’s numbers.

It found CalRecycle’s 2025 estimate of $21 billion in implementation costs, or $190 a year per California household, rests on “idealized assumptions that fail to capture real-world costs and complications the regulations will create.”

The study puts the number somewhere between $35 and $58 billion, rising after the implementation period.

Klug of CalRecycle said the agency’s earlier reports were just estimates. “The actual costs will be determined by producer choices,” he said. “These costs, for example, will reflect the infrastructure needed to recycle materials that producers are choosing to use.”

Agriculture groups push back 

The biggest hurdle for producers is cutting plastic use 25% by 2032 — which state regulators say will require redesigning packaging and shifting toward reusable products, such as dishes at restaurants and paper-based packaging for produce.

Business groups say they support the state’s goals but call the timeline unworkable.

Food safety is one sticking point: alternatives like paper-based containers for berries are less breathable and spoil faster, while heavier glass or cardboard adds transportation costs, said Casey Creamer, president of the California Fresh Fruit Association.

“We just don’t want to force something out and not be able to deliver a fresh, healthy commodity, or create a situation that has more significant or adverse environmental concerns just because we look at plastics and packaging in a silo,” Creamer said.

Environmental groups oppose any pause.

“All of us pay for plastic pollution through higher garbage bills and clean-ups of polluted beaches and waterways, not to mention the damage to our environment and our health,”said Nick Lapis, director of advocacy for Californians Against Waste.

Sen. Ben Allen, a Democrat representing coastal Los Angeles County who authored the law, said it’s time plastic producers are held accountable for the waste they produce.

“This 11th-hour Hail Mary is only trying to maintain status quo and avoid due responsibility, throwing years of good-faith negotiations, and affordability and sustainability improvements out the window,” he said in a statement about producers’ efforts to pause implementation of the law.

Businesses pass costs to consumers

Whether the plastics law is actually driving up grocery prices yet is hard to pin down. Creamer said businesses may already be factoring the organization’s planned fees into their prices.

Federal data show grocery prices dipped slightly in July from June, though prices have climbed year over year and that rate is accelerating, said Richard Volpe, a consumer-price expert at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Neither the USDA nor the Bureau of Labor Statistics has released August figures, and no data yet isolates the state plastics law’s effect from broader inflation.

Volpe said retailers, who run on thin margins, will eventually pass costs on to consumers — but probably not right away.

“It will not happen overnight,” he said. “And it will still be relatively small, mostly on the order of pennies on the dollar.”

Industry groups warn it will add up.

“If someone’s even on the cusp of food insecurity and they’re looking at $1,000 more a year, that’s pushing them over the food cliff,” said Nate Rose, a spokesperson for the California Grocers Association.

The Teamsters, which backed the plastics law hoping it would boost jobs, now worry the fees could affect workers too.

The law “has been morphed into something that is going to cost California consumers a substantial amount of money at a time when I don’t know if we need to spend thousands more on groceries,” said Gusman, the Teamsters lobbyist. “That also has an impact on the workforce.”