The 2024 Greater L.A. Homeless Count concluded last week. What can we expect?

The 2024 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count concluded last week, with thousands of volunteers spreading across the 4,000 square miles of Los Angeles County. 

The three-day homeless count is an annual tally organized by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA).  Community volunteers and city leaders, usually in groups of three, walk the streets of L.A., counting the number of homeless youth, adults, families and veterans. 

The count is done at night because, as stated by LAHSA, people experiencing homelessness are more likely to be mobile during the daytime and might be wrongfully counted twice. 

It’s been eight years, since 2016, that LAHSA began hosting the Homeless Count. This year, the count began on Tuesday, January 23, in the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys. On Wednesday, the East and West Los Angeles areas were also counted, before finishing with the final count in the Antelope Valley, Metro and South Los Angeles areas. 

This year, LAHSA announced key enhancements to the count, such as refining the ArcGis QuickCapture app, the application used as the digital counting tool for the three nights. Unfortunately, LAHSA reported that there were some “minor challenges” with the smartphone app during this year's count. The agency said that the glitch was in part due to how quickly the data was transferred from the field to a dashboard monitored by LAHSA. 

The glitching of the app also affected nightly counts. Volunteers were instructed that if the app stopped working or glitching, they should continue the count by tallying up the number of homeless people on a piece of paper. Paper tallies were then input into the database as soon as volunteers arrived back at their deployment sites. 

In LA County District 9, where 80% of its residents are Latinos, the homeless count took place on Thursday night. Volunteers gathered in the CD-9 district office in what is known as Historical South Central. “I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the dozens of volunteers who selflessly dedicated their time and energy to support the count in District 9,“ Councilmember Curren Price said in a statement. 

“Last year, Council District 9 saw a decline in the number of unsheltered neighbors, with South L.A. experiencing a 10 percent reduction compared to the previous year,” Price said.

According to LAHSA,  the information gleaned from the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count is used by policymakers, advocates and service providers to implement solutions to address homelessness and to allocate funding to better support the homeless population of L.A.

“The Point-in-Time Count is an important tool to confront the homelessness crisis,” said Mayor Karen Bass in the press conference kicking off on January 24. “Homelessness is an emergency, and it will take all of us working together to confront this emergency. With COVID back rent due at the end of the month, we have to ensure that we are doing everything we can to house Angelenos and also prevent Angelenos from falling into homelessness.”

Although the LAHSA initially requested and announced they needed 8,000 volunteers for this year's count, it later reported that only 5,700 volunteers fanned out from January 23 through 25, less than last year. 

Councilmember thanked volunteers who showed up for their homeless neighbors during this year's count. “As we kick off the first night of this year’s Homeless Count, I want to extend my gratitude to the thousands of volunteers taking the time to join us in this critical effort,” she said. “No amount of urgency is enough to end homelessness without money from the federal government. An accurate count of who is living on our city and county streets allows us to secure every dollar that we need to address this crisis.” 

Last year, the 2023 Los Angeles Homeless Count revealed that an estimated 75,518 people are experiencing homelessness at any given night within Los Angeles County, a 10% increase from the previous year. In 2023, the count also revealed that the City of LA had a 10% rise in homelessness, resulting in an estimated 46,260 people in the streets. 

Detailed demographic information to determine the age, gender, race, veteran status, and disabling condition of the homeless people counted during the three days is conducted through a separate demographic survey that the University of Southern California (USC) assists with. The 2023 count results were released in June. This year, LAHSA expects to release the results of the 2024 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count in late spring or early summer 2024.