After marking a small cut in homelessness in 2024, Los Angeles city and county officials are poised to announce the results of the 2025 homeless count.
Officials with the Los Angeles Department of Homeless Services expect the area’s unsheltered homelessness will decline for the second consecutive year, after a 2.7% decline last year.
“When I first came to Lahasa, we wanted to reduce the number of unsheld homelessness within three years. We did that together,” retired CEO Va Lecia Adams Kellum said in a statement in March.
The agency has postponed this year’s count. This usually happens at the end of January, after Pallisard and Eaton fire a devastated portion of LA County.
By February, hundreds of volunteers had spanned the entire LA area for three nights to count. This is a requirement for seeking federal funding.
A month later, LAHSA officials cited preliminary raw data and determined that unsheltered homelessness is expected to decrease by 5-10%.
“The Turning Point came when cities and counties declared emergency situations regarding homelessness and began working together through Rahasa to deal with the crisis,” Kelham said in a statement.
According to Rasa, there were 75,312 unpopular people in the county compared to 75,518 in 2023, compared to 75,518 in 2024. Additionally, in 2023, there were 45,252 impermeable people in LA city in 2024, but in 2023, it was down 2.2% to 46,260.
The city’s unsheltered homelessness fell by about 10.7%, while the county fell by 5.1% according to its 2024 homeless count.
The agency praises the resolution efforts of camps, including Mayor Karen Bass within the Safe Program and homeland of the county’s route to lowering homelessness.
Meanwhile, Los Angeles cities and counties have taken steps to change their approach to the homelessness crisis.
The County Board of Supervisors has withdrawn about $300 million generated by Measure A, a voter-approved semi-cent tax, for homelessness prevention, related services and Lahasa initiatives.
After the Scathing Audit revealed the institutional failure and lack of transparency in performance outcomes in the financial accounting of services, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to effectively withdraw from Lahasa in April.
The county is set to establish a new county homeless department in 2026.
The county supervisor recently appointed Sarah Mahin as director of this dedicated entity in homeless services.
City officials have approved a new department within the housing sector, which is expected to track contracts and performance outcomes with homeless service providers.
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