More unsheltered Angelenos are ‘rough sleeping’ without a tent, study says

A study that counts unsheltered populations in three L.A. neighborhoods — Skid Row, Hollywood and Venice — found a 15% decrease in the population last year overall compared to a year earlier.

However, the people who remained on the streets in 2024 were more vulnerable and harder for outreach organizations to serve, according to the report released Tuesday.

The LA LEADS study, by the Santa Monica-based RAND Corporation, found there was a 49% reduction in the number of people living unsheltered in Hollywood and a 22% reduction in Venice. The number of unsheltered people in Skid Row did not shrink at all, RAND found.

A key reason for the reductions, researchers said, was the city’s ongoing effort to move people into shelters through programs like Inside Safe, Mayor Karen Bass’ signature initiative, which offers motel vouchers to people living in encampments.

But the report also notes that many of the remaining unsheltered people living in those areas were “rough sleepers,” meaning they didn’t have any kind of dwelling like a tent or a vehicle.

They made up 42% of the unsheltered population in the three neighborhoods — up from 30% in 2021. In 2024, for the first time, there were more rough sleepers than tent dwellers living on the streets in RAND’s survey area.

“In this new context, a lot of those new people — more than ever before — are living rough, totally exposed to the elements,” said Louis Abramson, lead author of the study. “ The thing that marks the rough sleeping population is that they have the highest level of needs. They have no shelter whatsoever, and they're also the most socially isolated.”

Despite the reductions, RAND researchers noted that they counted significantly more people and dwellings in their study areas than the regional Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA, did in its annual count of the same areas.

RAND says its findings support a few overall recommendations for policymakers, including increased permanent housing and more engagement strategies for rough sleepers.

The nonprofit also said outreach to unhoused people should focus not just on offering shelter, but on building trust and relationships, according to the report.

More 'rough sleepers'

The percentage of the unsheltered population identified as rough sleepers has increased steadily since 2021 and more than doubled in Hollywood and Venice in 2024 compared to the prior year, according to the study.

Abramson said the shift presents clinical, tactical and logistical challenges. Members of that population have greater health risks than other unhoused people and are harder for service providers to find.  

”Now those people are spread out over a bigger geography,” Abramson said. “Now an outreach worker has to traverse a larger part of the city in order to see the same number of people, which makes them less efficient in engaging people.”

The RAND report says the overall decrease in unsheltered homelessness appears linked to two high-profile city policies: Inside Safe and the city’s anti-camping ordinance, which gives police the authority to remove people and their belongings from public spaces in some sections of the city.

Fewer tents in Hollywood correlates with record numbers of Inside Safe encampment-clearing operations in the neighborhood last year, according to the study .

Count disparities

In 2022 and 2023, RAND’s findings were in line with LAHSA’s estimates. But in 2024, LAHSA’s raw-count estimates for unsheltered populations in Venice, Skid Row and Hollywood were one-third less than what RAND counted in the same areas.

The differences were most striking in the counts for Venice. LAHSA volunteers counted 173 people and dwellings in RAND’s Venice study area. RAND counted 554.

Last year’s overall LAHSA count reported a first-ever 10% reduction in unsheltered homelessness within the city of L.A.

“If the undercounts that we observed extend more broadly, the true change may have been substantially smaller, complicating appropriate policy decisions and future [point-in-time] interpretations,” the report states.

LAist recently reported that LAHSA’s inconsistent data processing policies during last year’s count led to more volunteer observations being discarded within the city of LA than the previous year.

Other RAND findings

• Respondents reported staying in the same location for shorter amounts of time compared to past years.
• More than half the people surveyed reported receiving medical support while unsheltered.
• Roughly 91% said they are interested in housing, 38% reported being on a waitlist, and 13% reported having received offers of supportive housing.
• The three highest-rated housing-related needs reported by respondents were storing possessions, staying with a partner, child, pet or roommate, and being allowed to stay in a particular neighborhood.