Hollywood coalition plans to conduct its own homeless count, citing flaws in official tally

A group of volunteers in Hollywood say they are conducting their own homeless count in the area next week because they don't trust the results of the official regional one.

The effort is organized by Hollywood 4WRD, a coalition of nonprofit service providers, businesses and residents. About 60 volunteers, mostly staff from Hollywood service provider organizations, are expected to fan out across 30 census tracts Tuesday.

Results will be made public a week later May 27, according to organizers.

The neighborhood count comes amid growing questions about the accuracy of the official regional homeless tally.

The city of L.A.'s unhoused population decreased by 5.5% between 2023 and 2025, according to official estimates from the annual count conducted by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA. But a 2025 analysis by the RAND Corporation found that LAHSA undercounted people living outside in certain areas, including Hollywood.

Hollywood 4WRD executive director Brittney Weissman said the organization’s own experience volunteering for the LAHSA count this year raised even more questions about accuracy.

“Our experience was so confounding, perplexing and inefficient that we've been really deeply questioning the value, utility and accuracy of the count for a couple of years now,” Weissman said.

Organizers said the Hollywood count will use methodology developed by RAND researchers, who ran their own professional counts in Hollywood, Skid Row and Venice from 2021 until earlier this year.

That research effort, known as LA LEADS, has since lost funding.

“If LA LEADS was continuously funded into the future, we would not be doing this effort,” Weissman said. "Because it's no longer funded, we felt we needed to take our own initiative to understand the lay of the land here.”

What's at stake?

More than $300 million in federal and county dollars are allocated annually based on homeless count results. That includes $220 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and nearly $100 million from L.A. County's Measure A sales tax.

LAHSA conducted its most recent official homeless count in January. The agency said it hopes to release the results this summer but has not confirmed a release date.

In her reelection campaign, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass takes credit for reducing homelessness in the city. The official count underpinning her claim is the same one RAND found was missing nearly a third of unsheltered people in key neighborhoods.

Weissman said Hollywood service providers need to know now whether more people are living in vehicles or sleeping outside, so they can adjust how they're doing outreach.

Organizers timed the May 27 release to influence budget negotiations still underway at City Hall, according to Weissman.

She noted that Bass' proposed budget does not include funding for Safe Parking LA, a program that allows unhoused Angelenos to live legally in their vehicles within sanctioned parking lots.

"If we find that vehicular homelessness is on the rise here and we need it badly, this gives us evidence with which to petition decisionmakers for that resource in our community," she said.

What RAND found

RAND's LA LEADS project ran bimonthly counts in Hollywood, Skid Row and Venice from 2021 until this January.

Comparing LAHSA’s official counts to its own, a RAND report found the 2025 homeless count captured 68% of the unsheltered population across those three neighborhoods.

RAND found the population of unsheltered people in Hollywood dropped 49% in 2024, a decline it linked to the city’s Inside Safe program. But the official LAHSA count still captured only 81% of what RAND found in the neighborhood.

The people being missed were mostly vehicle dwellers and “rough sleepers” — people living with no shelter, RAND said.

Skid Row's official tally fared worse, capturing 61% of what RAND found there.

Hollywood 4WRD said its methodology follows RAND’s LA LEADS methodology, which the group said is more precise than LAHSA’s approach.

Each census tract will be covered by at least two independent volunteers, a quality-control measure that helps organizers flag areas that might need to be recounted.

Volunteers will also use pens and paper to record their observations, instead of a mobile app. LAHSA has used an app for its count since 2022 and has acknowledged repeated technical problems with it.

The unofficial homeless count this month is limited to Hollywood, unlike LAHSA's countywide effort. Weissman said she hopes the effort will encourage other neighborhoods to check their own local data.