Homeless Count 2024: Fewer people are living on Los Angeles streets this year
A record number of people moved from the streets into shelter. Does this mean L.A. is turning the tide on homelessness?
A record number of people moved off the streets and into shelter last year, according to data released by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), offering a glint of hope in the grim fight against homelessness.
The 2024 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, which was conducted over a three day window in January, found practically no change in the county’s homeless population compared to last year. But, the number of unsheltered people — people living in tents, vehicles, and makeshift shelters — dropped by 5.1%, while people living in shelters rose by 12.7%.
These positive data points were more pronounced in the City of Los Angeles, which saw a 10.4% drop in unsheltered homelessness and 17.7% increase in sheltered homelessness.
“Overall there are more people in shelter and fewer people on the street,” said Paul Rubenstein, deputy chief external relations officer for LAHSA. “That means more people are experiencing homelessness in safer, more stable environments as they move toward permanent housing.”
Rubenstein said it is “too early to call this a definite trend,” but was the result of “unprecedented coordination” between LAHSA, the city, and the county in responding to the crisis. That includes the city’s Inside Safe program and the county’s Pathway Home program, which brought more than 3,500 people in encampments into interim housing in the last 18 months.
Overall, LAHSA recorded 75,312 homeless people in the 2024 count. This is almost the same as the 75,518 people recorded in 2023 and welcome news after homelessness jumped by 9.1% between the 2022 and 2023 counts.
But mammoth challenges remain and opinions differ on whether Los Angeles is truly turning the tide in its battle against homelessness.
“A year doesn’t make a trend,” said Ben Henwood, project lead for the homeless count at USC. “Do these results mean that fewer people are falling into homelessness? Or was this just a one-year reprieve and next year it will start to inch up again?”
“I think that there’s probably reason for caution.”
Jennifer Hark Dietz, CEO of nonprofit organization People Assisting the Homeless (PATH), struck an optimistic tone.
“Every day, case managers and social workers and affordable housing developers are turning the tide,” she said. “Over the last year, the City and County of Los Angeles have kept a laser focus and invested in proven solutions at the actual scale of the crisis.”
“We are seeing a return on these investments now and are hopeful we’ll continue to see more downward trends,” she said.
Daniel Conway, an attorney who has worked on homeless issues throughout California, was less enthused by this year’s results. He is a policy advisor for the Los Angeles Alliance for Human Rights, an organization that sued the city and county of Los Angeles for failing to respond to the homeless crisis.
“There’s more money than ever being spent to assist people experiencing homelessness; there’s more permanent supportive housing, there’s more interim housing, there’s more navigation centers, there’s more outreach workers,” he said. “And yet, we’re not seeing significant declines that would demonstrate that all of this money is having a significant impact.”
Earlier this year Conway and other members of the alliance won a court order that seeks an independent audit of all homeless programs funded by the city of L.A. He hopes it will produce insight into the outcomes of homeless programs, which in turn can increase accountability for homeless spending and lead to investment in effective strategies.
“The challenge for LAHSA, and the City and County of Los Angeles, is to take this data and sustain it,” he said. “And don’t just sustain it by throwing things up against the wall to see if they stick, but by actually having better performance and better metrics, so that we know what programs are contributing to these decreases, and how.”
There are two huge challenges facing Los Angeles: stemming the tide of people falling into homelessness and finding permanent housing placements for those living in shelters.
LAHSA identified the cost of housing as the primary driver of homelessness in Los Angeles.
The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles County is around $2,500, which would require a $48 an hour salary to be affordable. However, the median hourly wage in the region is about $33 an hour.
The county has also seen a record number of evictions following the expiration of COVID-era moratoriums. Between February and December 2023, more than 77,000 eviction notices were filed, said Rubenstein.
“Our community must do more to keep those on the verge of losing their apartments in their current homes,” said Rubenstein. “The economics that drive homelessness haven’t changed and as long as these trends continue, we will continue to have an uphill battle to end homelessness.”
In addition to the shortage of affordable housing for low-income residents, there is also a shortage of permanent supportive housing for people living in temporary shelter.
“Bringing people indoors is a vital first step, but connecting people to housing they can afford is what truly ends homelessness,” said PATH CEO Hark-Dietz. “L.A. County is still in extreme need of more housing and increasing the supply is the only way we can make housing more affordable.”
That is why PATH is backing Measure A, a half-cent sales tax put on the ballot by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. It would provide funding for affordable housing and homeless services including mental health care and substance use treatment. If approved, it would replace Measure H, a quarter-cent sales tax approved by voters in 2017 and set to expire in 2027.