LA's homeless count was short on volunteers. Some say last month's fires were to blame

Volunteer turnout for the Los Angeles region’s Homeless Count was lower than last year, which presented an extra challenge in a year when the annual event had to be postponed because of the wildfires.

The annual point-in-time count relies on thousands of volunteers to tally the area’s unhoused population. And those numbers help inform policy and funding decisions.

Last year, about 6,000 volunteers participated, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA, which conducts the count. This year, more than 5,400 people registered to volunteer.

But not everyone who signed up actually showed up, according to several elected officials and others who volunteered across the region.

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What happened during the count?

On Tuesday night, L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman and her staff volunteered in Studio City, where she said there was a serious shortage of volunteers.

“Staff and volunteers last night were doing six or seven [census] tracts each,” Raman said at an L.A. City Council meeting Wednesday. “It was a lot. There was a really really poor turnout, and people who had signed up didn't show up last night.”

Councilmember Katy Yarovslavsky reported the same thing in the Mid-Wilshire and Mid-City areas.

“A bunch of people who had signed up to come didn't show up because we moved it back from January to February,” she said.

At a volunteer site in Downey on Wednesday night, it was apparent the organizers did not have enough volunteers. A few hours into the event, organizers said they were able to start tallying about a third of the total areas needed to count.

To make up the difference, they called in special teams of LAHSA outreach workers who worked late into the night. LAHSA said any census tracts that weren’t counted on the day they were scheduled will be counted by staff over the next week.

Employees of the St. Joseph Center in Venice consult their map near the boardwalk during the Homeless Count on Thursday night.

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Aaron Schrank

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LAist

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Phone app glitches

LAHSA said there was a technical issue with the phone app volunteers used for the count, which meant they couldn’t highlight the boundaries of their assigned census tracts within the app. They said the error did not impact data collection and that it was fixed before the second night.

L.A. City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield said he was volunteering in Reseda on the first night and experienced many problems with the app. He said teams had to use backup paper maps and tally sheets to do the work. This is the third consecutive year in which LAHSA has reported glitches with the app, but it remains to be seen how widespread the issues were this year.

Several volunteers at multiple sites told LAist they had no problems with the app.

Many said they volunteered to help with the count because they wanted to do their part to help fix L.A.’s homelessness crisis. And to fix it, they said, you have to measure it.

“We want that real data so we can be able to get the funding to be able to help those who really need the housing, to show that there is an epidemic,” said Denise D.J. Johnson, a three-time volunteer.

Vicente Rodriguez volunteered for the first time on Wednesday night.

“I thought this was a great project to get involved with because we need to have an accurate picture of the homeless population in L.A. County for funding reasons,” he said.

What's next?

Usually, LAHSA releases its findings from the annual count in the summer. Authorities from the agency haven’t said how delaying the start of the count this year will affect the release date.

Last year, there was a small reduction in homelessness for the first time in years.

L.A. leaders say they hope that trend continues.