Following a year of implementing a multi-governmental approach and spending millions of dollars on programs to address homelessness across the Los Angeles region, elected officials Friday will announce the results of the 2024 Homeless Count — an annual point-in-time snapshot of the crisis.
Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s Deputy Chief of External Relations Paul Rubenstein and Benjamin Henwood, a professor with USC’s Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, are expected to discuss the data. LAHSA, a joint powers authority coordinated by both the city and county of Los Angeles, conducted the 2024 count Jan. 24-26.
LAHSA CEO Va Lecia Adams Kellum, L.A. County Supervisor Board Chair Lindsey Horvath and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass will provide remarks about the results and next steps to reduce homelessness.
The results of the 2023 Homeless Count showed there were 75,518 people experiencing homelessness in the county, and 46,260 in the city of Los Angeles — which represented an increase in homelessness from the 2022 count with 69,144 in the county and 41,980 in the city.
The 2023 figures represented a steady climb in the number of Southland homeless people over the past five years. In 2018, there were 52,765 homeless counted in the county, and 31,285 in the city.
L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn, at the time, called the 2023 results “disappointing.”
“It is frustrating to have more people fall into homelessness even as we are investing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars and resources into efforts to bring people inside. I appreciate the cities that have stepped up and supported solutions, but these numbers prove that solutions-oriented cities are too few and far between.”
L.A. county and city officials committed to a collaborative approach to reducing homelessness and bringing unhoused individuals into temporary and permanent housing, such as shelter sites, motels, apartments, among other sites.
In December 2022, Bass launched her Inside Safe initiative in an effort to reduce tents and other makeshift encampments across city streets and bring unhoused individuals into temporary housing. Bass and the L.A. City Council have also implemented programs aimed at bolstering housing production, increasing shelter beds and sustaining Tiny Home Villages, interim housing sites and other housing facilities with the intent of placing unhoused individuals into permanent housing.
County officials launched a similar program to that of Inside Safe, known as Pathway Home, in 2023.