Long Beach's unhoused population rose 6.5% last year, officials say; LA fires partly to blame

Long Beach’s unhoused population increased by 6.5% this year compared with last year, according to the results of the city’s annual homeless count.

In January, volunteers counted 3,595 people experiencing homelessness in Long Beach, compared with the 3,376 people counted in January 2024.

That’s an increase of 219 unhoused people.

City officials said Monday that most of that small spike is because a portion of the people counted — 167 — said they were displaced by the Los Angeles fires, which were still burning when the city conducted its count on Jan. 23.

Comments from the mayor

Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson acknowledged Monday that the numbers may have changed already, months after the disaster.

“There may have been folks in cars or in hotels or on our streets who were impacted in that moment by the fire. That doesn't mean they're necessarily still displaced today,” he said at a roundtable event with other city leaders.

City authorities said the people who reported being displaced by the fires made up the majority of that 6.5% increase.

“If you were to take that out, we are seeing that our overall count is about a 1.5% increase,” said Paul Duncan, the city’s Homeless Services Bureau manager.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development requires municipalities to conduct homeless counts at the same time each year — usually in late January.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a regional agency known as LAHSA, conducts the count that covers the city of L.A. and much of the county. It excludes Long Beach, Glendale and Pasadena, which do their own counts. LAHSA pushed its count to February because of the fires.

Long Beach chose not to reschedule. Roughly 300 volunteers fanned out across the 52-square-mile city to count people, despite the poor air quality caused by smoke and ash.

“We were confronted with the decision: Should we move the count based on the conditions with the wildfire?” Richardson said. “We decided to keep the count. It was important to maintain that consistency.”

Other findings

According to Long Beach authorities, homelessness in the city skyrocketed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing by 62% between 2020 and 2022.

Last year, the city reported a 2% decrease in its unhoused population over the previous year’s count. It was the first time the numbers had gone down since 2017, city officials said.

Based on findings this year, Long Beach’s population of unhoused people defined as “unsheltered” — meaning they could be living in tents or other makeshift structures, or in cars and RVs — decreased 4%. The population of unhoused people defined as “sheltered” — meaning they have access to a temporary shelter bed — went up 7%.

Long Beach officials said the data indicates the city is getting more unhoused people off the streets. They said they moved more than 3,000 people inside over the past two years.

This year’s homeless count showed that 28% of unhoused people in the city were living in homeless shelters. There are 1,357 shelter beds in Long Beach, city officials said. Among the unsheltered, more than 1,000 people — or 39% of the city’s unsheltered population — reported living in cars or RVs.

Many people counted this year reported that this was the first time in their lives that they had experienced homelessness. Most said they had been living in Long Beach when they lost their housing. Much smaller numbers said they came from Los Angeles and Orange counties.

About 41% said they became homeless because they were unemployed or had other financial hardships. In last year’s count, that number was 37%.