5 key facts about this year’s LA homeless count

Thousands of volunteers are out on streets and sidewalks this week tallying people, tents, vehicles and shelters as part of the annual Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count.

The yearly count of the local unhoused population has become increasingly consequential and controversial in Los Angeles County. The area is home to the largest unhoused population in the U.S., estimated at more than 72,000 last year.

But it’s also one of the few places where homeless population estimates are shrinking. For the past two years, homelessness declined slightly in both the city and county of Los Angeles — even as homelessness surged 18% nationally in 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Whether that trend will continue is far from certain. This year's count comes amid a major transition period for L.A.’s homelessness response system. Serious funding shortfalls threaten homeless services across the region.

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Meanwhile, questions are mounting about whether the count itself can be trusted, with some local officials openly expressing doubts about its accuracy and usefulness.

The 2026 results are expected to be released in late spring or early summer.

Here are five key facts about the L.A. homeless count this year:

1. Stakes are high 

Last year's count found homelessness dropped for a second consecutive year, down 3.4% in the city of Los Angeles and 4% countywide. Local officials touted those results as evidence the region’s investments in shelter and homeless services were paying off, after years of increasing homelessness.

At an event in July, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass took credit for the numbers going down.

“ For the first time in our city's recent history, homelessness has gone down two years in a row,” Bass said. “ This lasting change was only possible because we chose to act with urgency and reject the status quo.”

Now, local homelessness officials warn the L.A. region’s unhoused population may be growing again, as some state and local funding for homeless services and housing is disappearing.

The L.A. region’s lead homeless agency, known as LAHSA, is responsible for conducting the count. At an event Tuesday, LAHSA’s interim CEO Gita O’Neill said this year’s homeless count comes at a pivotal time.

“Across Los Angeles, the homeless services system is undergoing major changes, from funding shifts and program transitions to the way outreach, shelter, and housing are delivered,” O’Neill said. “Those changes, combined with ongoing economic pressures, may put the progress we’ve made over the last couple of years at risk.”

Thousands of Angelenos are set to lose federal housing vouchers this year as pandemic era emergency grant funding expires. A large number of homeless services and programs are facing cuts, because of shortfalls in state, county and city budgets.

Officials and service providers say this year’s count will be crucial for understanding the impacts of cuts.

“This year’s homeless count is more important than ever,” said Amber Sheikh, chair of the LAHSA Commission. “With looming funding cuts at all levels of government, this will give us critically needed data to allow us to advocate effectively.”

There's also a new concern this year: Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez's office said heightened activity by federal immigration enforcement officers might add challenges, if more people meant to be counted are laying low.

“Regardless of what the topline numbers show, the urgency remains the same,” a spokesperson for Hernandez told LAist. "We need sustained investments in permanent housing, tenant protections, and mental health care to actually reduce homelessness over time."

Gita O’Neill, interim CEO of LAHSA, speaks ahead of the annual homeless count on Jan. 20, 2026.

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Jordan Rynning

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2. Regional homelessness agency faces scrutiny, reduced funding

In addition to conducting the count, LAHSA has been responsible for administering most homeless service programs across the region, but that’s in flux.

Recent audits and reports found LAHSA mismanaged funds and failed to collect accurate data on its vendors or properly hold them accountable for providing services.

Last April, L.A. County leaders redirected more than $300 million in funding away from LAHSA and formed a new county homelessness department to oversee the funding itself. The county’s Department of Homeless Services and Housing launched Jan. 1.

LAHSA will continue conducting the annual count with a reduced budget. The agency’s former CEO once warned those funding declines could jeopardize this year’s count.

“ Our team is working to reduce costs for next year's count given this situation,” Va Lecia Adams Kellum said last May. “But even with cost saving adjustments, we anticipate that the current allocations will not provide enough funding for LAHSA to conduct an unsheltered count in 2026.”

The proposed L.A. County homelessness budget for next fiscal year includes $2.3 million for the Homeless Count.

3. Count determines Measure A funding for cities

This year's count will help determine how much money each of Los Angeles County's 88 cities receives from Measure A, the voter-approved half-cent sales tax expected to generate about $1 billion annually for homeless services and affordable housing.

About $96 million from Measure A goes into a Local Solutions Fund divided among all cities. The funding formula is based 90% on each city's homeless count results from the past two years and 10% on the number of extremely low-income households.

That means the homeless count now affects city budgets in a way it never has before.

Based on its unhoused population estimates, the city of Los Angeles got roughly $55 million in the current budget year, 57% of the entire local fund. Smaller cities with fewer unhoused residents are getting far less. Ranchos Palos Verdes is allocated about $38,000 and Manhattan Beach $41,000.

Some cities have argued the funding formula is unfair and should be more proportional to a municipality’s tax contributions.

The mayor of Torrance told LAist that the city expects to generate about $26 million annually through the Measure A sales tax and received about $559,000 in local funding. There were 355 unhoused people living in Torrance in February, according to last year’s official estimate.

Kristina Ross navigates for her team of volunteers during LAHSA's annual homeless count on Jan. 20, 2026.

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Jordan Rynning

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LAist

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4. Organizers made some technology updates

LAHSA has made several changes to this year's count following volunteer complaints about the mobile app, which has been plagued by glitches since its introduction in 2023.

“The app as it has been particularly glitchy over the years,” a spokesperson for L.A. City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield told LAist. “We tend to always do a paper count, as well as count through the app, just in case there are any discrepancies.”

For the 2026 count, LAHSA says it has simplified volunteer training, created improved maps in partnership with community stakeholders and assigned more staff to provide technical support at deployment sites.

The agency is also coordinating with county health services and emergency response teams to better count hard-to-reach areas like river embankments, deserts and parks. For example, the Sepulveda Basin in the San Fernando Valley is counted during a specialized daytime operation.

5. Concerns about the annual count’s accuracy

Even with improvements, some remain skeptical about the count's accuracy and usefulness.

L.A. City Councilmember John Lee told LAist the count “falls short of accurately portraying the situation on our city streets” and cautioned against “relying too heavily on a single annual snapshot that may not reflect day-to-day reality.”

“Rather than focusing on a single set of numbers once a year, we should be working year-round to gather consistent data that tracks outcomes like housing placements, retention, and system capacity," Lee said. “That kind of information would be far more valuable in evaluating what's actually working.”

A RAND Corporation analysis released in October found that the annual LAHSA tally has been increasingly inaccurate in recent years. RAND found LAHSA undercounted more than 30% of the population in Skid Row, Hollywood and Venice last year. The analysis was based on RAND’s own professional counts of those neighborhoods.

An LAist investigation last year found that LAHSA used inconsistent data processing methods, without clear documentation or written policies. This led to volunteer app observations being excluded from the data at a higher rate than the year before — and at a higher rate within L.A. city limits than in the rest of the county.

“There have been results in prior years that didn't make sense,” Blumenfield’s spokesperson said, referencing a recent example when count results showed way more RVs in a Reseda corridor than the office’s staff had observed during regular outreach.

Several representatives from smaller cities said they don’t rely solely on the count to understand the crisis on their sidewalks and streets. Santa Clarita officials called the count “one of the many tools used to guide local and regional responses to homelessness.”