LA’s annual homeless count starts tonight. Here’s what you need to know

Thousands of volunteers will fan out across Los Angeles County this week to survey unhoused people, an annual event that determines how millions in funding is directed across the region.

The Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, which starts Tuesday, is the largest of its kind in the country, according to officials, with volunteers covering more than 4,000 square miles in three days. Small groups in assigned areas will tally the number of people, tents, shelters and vehicles they see on the streets.

Typically, the results are released in the spring or early summer.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which leads the count, says the data volunteers collect is essential for understanding homelessness in the region and for sending resources where they're needed most.

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“The information gathered by volunteers strengthens our data and helps our system better understand where our unhoused neighbors are, the services they need most, and what it will take to bring them inside,” Gita O’Neill, LAHSA’s interim CEO, said in a statement.

In past years, the annual count has seen a serious shortage of volunteers in some areas, an app plagued by reported technical issues and doubts about data collection, which LAHSA says it’s taken steps to address this year.

When last year's count showed a drop in homelessness for a second year in a row, many officials celebrated the region’s progress in getting people off the street and bucking the trend of years of increases.

But it’s unclear if that trend will continue.

Both the city and county are facing funding losses that are expected to affect homeless services and housing programs, including more than 4,000 Angelenos who are at risk of losing housing vouchers later this year.

How it works

The annual point-in-time count is conducted each year at the end of January, as required by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Last year was an exception. It was moved to February because of the fires in L.A.

The 2025 count showed homelessness dropped by 3.4% in the city of L.A. and by 4% countywide, including the number of people in shelters and sleeping outdoors.

LAHSA said several factors contributed to those changes, including the clearing of encampments and nearly 28,000 people being placed into permanent housing last year — a record high.

But the accuracy of the numbers has been questioned. A RAND Corporation report released in October found that L.A.’s annual tally increasingly undercounts people on the streets and decreased in accuracy over the past two years.

"In 2022 and 2023, at least in the areas where we count, the [Point-in-Time count] was, as far as I can tell, excellent,” Louis Abramson, lead author of the RAND report, said previously. “I don't know what has happened afterwards."

On Tuesday, the count will start in the San Fernando Valley, Santa Clarita Valley and Metro L.A. area, including downtown and Skid Row. On Wednesday, volunteers will turn their attention to East L.A. and the San Gabriel Valley.

The count is expected to wrap up Thursday in the Antelope Valley, West L.A., South L.A., South Bay and Harbor region.

The 2026 homeless count dates and map.

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Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority

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count.lahsa.org

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Teams typically head out after 8 p.m., when people experiencing homelessness are more likely to have settled down for the night, especially those living in cars or RVs.

But some are done during the day because of visibility or safety concerns, according to LAHSA. The Antelope Valley and parts of West L.A. will be counted Thursday morning like last year while the rest are counted at night.

Areas that may be heard to reach, including river embankments, parks or deserts, are assigned to special teams of outreach workers, according to LAHSA.

The count is conducted visually, meaning volunteers are supposed to tally only what they see in front of them. For example, if a volunteer does not see anyone but hears voices coming from a makeshift shelter, they’re instructed to count the shelter instead of the voices.

Marina Flores, left, and Helde Pereira document homeless sightings during LAHSA's annual count last year.

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Carlin Stiehl

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A Shelter Count and Housing Inventory Count will also be held Wednesday. The Housing Inventory Count is a point-in-time tally of projects or sites that provide beds and units for the unhoused or formerly unhoused community.

The Youth Count, an estimate of the county’s unsheltered youth population, is conducted throughout the month with service organizations. It’s a survey-based tally where young people are asked about their housing status, rather than a visual count.

A separate demographic survey is also being done by the University of Southern California to gather details like age, gender, race and veteran status, among others. The survey started last month and runs through March, according to LAHSA.

Glendale, Pasadena and Long Beach conduct separate counts on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

What’s new

This will be the first count conducted since Measure A went into effect last spring.

The new voter-approved half-cent sales tax is expected to generate about $1 billion annually for homeless services and affordable housing in L.A. County. The specific funding formula that determines which all 88 cities get what is based mostly on each city’s homeless count results from the past two years.

LAHSA said it has made several improvements for this year’s count, including simplified volunteer training and better maps created in partnership with people in the community.

The agency will be working with additional outreach staff from the L.A. County Department of Health Services and L.A. County Emergency Centralized Response Center to boost counting efforts in hard-to-reach areas that are too dangerous or inaccessible for volunteers, according to officials.

LAHSA is again using an app made by Esri, a software company based in Redlands, to collect volunteer data for a fourth year.

Helde Pereira documents sites of homeless encampments during LAHSA's annual homeless count last year.

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Carlin Stiehl

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LAist

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Technology problems have popped up with the app before. Volunteers from the 2024 count told LAist previously that data entry errors were common, and several said they had to wait hours to start counting when they had trouble logging in.

Teams from Councilmember Bob Blumenfield’s office regularly volunteer for the count.

Representatives from that office told LAist recently that the council member has been vocal about his concerns over logistics, specifically glitches with the app over the years. Blumenfield’s team usually does a paper count in addition to using the app in case there are any discrepancies, his office said in an email.

LAHSA said more of its staff will be assigned as technical support at deployment sites this year.

Ahmad Chapman, LAHSA’s director of communications, told LAist the agency has also made several changes to the Housing Inventory count to improve data collection and make it easier to validate responses.

Last summer, LAist reported that LAHSA revised the locations of more than 400 sheltered people in the 2025 count, moving them out of the city of L.A., days before the results were released publicly.

At the time, Chapman told LAist the revisions were made because the agency discovered that its new housing inventory system had incorrectly tagged several hundred interim housing units as being within the city of L.A. The agency said it fixed the problem in July.

This time around, Chapman said, LAHSA held live training sessions for providers on how to submit data, revamped forms so information is provided by site location instead of by project and added ways to let LAHSA staff look at submissions in “near real-time.”

Volunteers at the 2023 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count go over a map of Westwood before heading out.

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Samanta Helou Hernandez

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LAist

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Volunteers

LAHSA says it hopes to have about 4,200 volunteers help complete the count from roughly 150 deployment sites, which are like base camps for each neighborhood.

L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis, chair of the Board of Supervisors, said volunteer participation is essential for capturing a complete picture of homelessness.

“These counts help us see where progress is being made, where additional resources are needed, and how we can better serve our most vulnerable residents,” Solis said in a statement.

Multiple L.A. councilmembers and their staffers are volunteering in their districts this week, including Blumenfield in Reseda, Eunisses Hernandez in Highland Park and Hugo Soto-Martínez in Rampart Village, their offices confirmed to LAist.

About 4,000 volunteers registered as of Monday, which was up from 2,200 volunteers the week before. Some deployment sites, including Westwood and Avocado Heights, had more vacancies than volunteers, according to LAHSA’s live tracker.

O’Neill said in a statement ahead of the count that LAHSA was still looking for more sign-ups, especially in East L.A., the South Bay and the San Gabriel Valley. All ages can register, but volunteers under 18 must be with an adult at all times. You can learn more here.

The agency usually sees the largest surge in registration the week leading up to the count, according to Chapman. He also said any areas not counted the next three nights will be considered a “make-up” and tallied shortly after as part of the agency’s data quality assurance process.