Thousands of volunteers launch LA’s annual homeless count

One of the most important surveys on homelessness in Los Angeles is underway as thousands of Angelenos started visiting streets and sidewalks across the county Tuesday night.

The Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count — the largest of its kind in the country — is typically done at the end of January, as required by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. But this year’s was postponed because of the wildfires.

The data volunteers collect, which will be released by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) in the coming months, plays a critical role in how resources are used to address homelessness.

At a news conference from a Lincoln Heights deployment site, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass cautioned that the number of people experiencing homelessness may rise after the Eaton and Palisades fires, which destroyed thousands of structures.

“This is an important evening because it will allow us to see progress made and how much more needs to be done,” Bass said.

How it works

The count will wrap up Wednesday and Thursday nights with roughly 5,000 volunteers across nearly 150 L.A. County deployment sites, which is like a base camp for each neighborhood.

Most areas are counted after 8 p.m., when many people experiencing homelessness have settled down for the night and are less likely to be tallied twice. But there are some done during the day, including the Antelope Valley and parts of West L.A, because of visibility or safety concerns, according to LAHSA.

On Tuesday, volunteers focused on the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys, as well as the Metro L.A. area, which includes MacArthur Park, downtown, and Skid Row.

Jennifer Hark Dietz, CEO of People Assisting The Homeless (PATH), told LAist the count is a low-barrier way for people to learn more about their unhoused neighbors and the issues they face.

“You can pair them with folks that have more experience,” she said. “You can talk about how homelessness impacts our community and our city.”

Marina Flores, who has been volunteering for more than a decade, agreed. She told LAist that counting in Lincoln Heights has provided a new perspective of her neighborhood.

“I think it's an opportunity to slow down and to pay attention to this issue that is literally, physically, in our backyards,” she said.

Block by block

Flores was teamed up with Helde Pereira, a first-time volunteer and PhD student who is considering researching loneliness in the unhoused population, to cover a small section of Lincoln Heights.

While Flores drove, Pereira used a paper map to navigate and a phone application called “ArcGIS QuickCapture” to keep track of the number of people experiencing homelessness, tents, and makeshift shelters.

The teams are supposed to cover every corner of their assigned area — including alleyways, convenience stores, dumpsters, freeway underpasses, and public parking lots. Those that aren’t easily accessible, such as river banks, have been assigned to special teams of professional outreach workers.

“I think here, look,” Pereira said as they drove slowly down a busy street, pulling over occasionally with the car’s lights flashing.

“That’s an encampment,” Flores replied.

“I knew it would, I always pass by here,” Pereira said. “ I would call it a shelter, not a tent, because  there were more than one tent.”

LAHSA relies “heavily” on those who know their neighborhood best and can check if any people were missed, which both Flores and Pereira navigated easily. They compared notes about which areas they’ve seen people experiencing homelessness and shared their surprise that a nearby park was empty.

It’s considered a visual count, which means volunteers will only tally what they see in front of them, whether that’s a person standing in front of a tent or just the tent itself. Flores and Pereira counted only two makeshift shelters after about 45 minutes of driving block by block.

It’s not uncommon for volunteer teams to come back from counting almost empty handed. Some areas will have few people visibly experiencing homelessness, while others have dozens of RVs, tents, and shelters.

“ Sometimes [volunteers] feel discouraged, like, ‘we didn't find anybody’,” Flores said. “And I'm like, that's wonderful. I'm so glad there's a part of our city that doesn't have people experiencing homelessness there."

What’s next

On Wednesday, volunteers will tackle the San Gabriel Valley and East L.A., including Altadena, which was recently devastated by the Eaton Fire.

On Thursday, they’ll turn their attention to the Antelope Valley, West L.A., and South L.A., as well as the South Bay and Harbor.

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who represents MacArthur Park, Chinatown, and Lincoln Heights in district 1, said the data helps officials like her better advocate for resources for the people who need it most.

“ But don't stop at the count,” Hernandez said at the news conference. “ The homelessness crises, and the housing crises, are both systems of a system that fails to protect people. We must demand better. We must do better, and we will do better.”

The final results will be released in late spring or early summer, which Hark Dietz noted can be a challenge with the count. She said the point-in-time data doesn’t necessarily reflect the trends and needs of the unhoused population throughout the rest of the year.

“ We saw with the fires, right, things can happen overnight,” she said. “All of a sudden the community of unhoused may need to move to another location.  So I feel like we do have better data to show us those trends,  to show us, you know, areas that we're seeing an increase.”

Have thoughts?

We also wanted to take a temperature check on where those feelings stand.

Among the questions we asked: Do you feel like homelessness across L.A. has improved or gotten worse since Mayor Bass took office?

You can take that survey here.

Go deeper…

• Has homelessness changed under Mayor Bass? Here’s what you told us
• LA’s Homeless Count needs more volunteers
• LA-area homeless count rescheduled to February
• Wildfires delay annual Los Angeles homeless count