After three years of growing homelessness, the population of people without a permanent or stable roof over their heads in Los Angeles County fell by 3 percent to 53,195 people, according to the results of this year’s homeless count. But some communities, the San Fernando Valley, the South Bay and the San Gabriel Valley, saw their local homeless numbers rise.
The reversal in the overall growth of homelessness comes after last year’s count recorded a 17 percent spike in the number of people experiencing homelessness.
The drop from last year’s numbers represents an estimated 1,853 fewer people experiencing homelessness, based on figures released Thursday by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), which coordinates the annual tally over several days in January.
LAHSA is a joint city and county agency that oversees funding and programs to help alleviate and end homelessness throughout much of Los Angeles county, excluding the cities of Long Beach, Glendale and Pasadena. The 53,195 people counted as homeless covers more than just LAHSA’s coverage area, which on its own saw its homeless population fall 4 percent to 50,385 people.
Long Beach’s last homeless count conducted in January 2017 showed there were 1,863 homeless people living on the streets, a 21 percent decrease from 2015.
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Even with the decrease, homelessness is still widely visible throughout Los Angeles County, where people primarily experience homelessness in the open. Out of those counted as homeless, 39,826 people, or 75 percent, were without shelter and living on sidewalks and in vehicles, tents or another type of makeshift shelter.
And while homelessness fell overall, some communities actually saw their homeless populations climb locally. The San Fernando Valley saw a 6 percent increase, putting that area’s homeless population at 7,773 people. The San Gabriel Valley saw a similar increase of about 5 percent to 4,292 people, while the South Bay saw a 3 percent rise to 6,119 people.
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The city of Los Angeles, which has the largest share of the homeless population, experienced a 5 percent decrease to 31,516 people experiencing homelessness.
The slight overall decreases this year occurred as more people are being placed into housing. Last year, 16,519 people were estimated to have been housed, up from 14,214 in 2016 and 10,917 the year before.
A recently approved countywide sales tax increase, put into place by Measure H, is also bringing in more revenue to pay for homeless services. And in the city of Los Angeles, the $1.2 billion bond measure, Proposition HHH, is helping to finance more permanent supportive housing projects over the next decade that are aimed at helping chronically homeless people.
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Some areas of homelessness saw marked decreases. There were 14,389 people counted as experiencing chronic homelessness, down 16 percent from the 17,204 counted last year. The number of homeless veterans went down to 3,910 people, an 18 percent drop from last year’s count.
But other trends show that more people fell into homelessness within the last year than ever before, with the number of people who are newly homeless up to 9,322 people, from the 8,044 counted last year.
And about 46 percent of the 9,322 people were experiencing homelessness for the first time because of job loss and other financial reasons.
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LAHSA executive director Peter Lynn attributed some of the numbers to the “tremendous” housing and economic-related pressures faced by low-income people throughout Los Angeles County.
“We have one of America’s least affordable housing markets,” said LAHSA executive director Peter Lynn.
He pointed to figures just released by the California Housing Partnership Corporation that indicates that Los Angeles County need 565,000 additional affordable units, up by more than 16,000 last year.
“Our median rents are going up much faster than median incomes, and that puts tremendous pressure” on people with the lowest wages and incomes, he said.
Not only does Los Angeles County have the highest poverty rates in California, at almost 25 percent, it also ranks at the top nationwide if the high cost of living is taken into account, according to Lynn.
“We are at the epicenter of high amounts of poverty in an extremely unaffordable market,” Lynn said.
LAHSA officials also pointed to another concerning trend in which the population of people who are 62 years old and over have gone up by 22 percent to 4,782 people.
Although officials said they are still looking into what caused this increase, activists fighting evictions and advocating for more rights for low-income tenants said it is a further indication of the lack of affordable housing in Los Angeles.
“For seniors on fixed incomes, what we’re seeing is that an extreme rent increase is tantamount to an eviction,” said Tracy Rosenthal, a tenant and member of the Los Angeles Tenants Union.
“When people don’t have a support system to rely on, they become homeless,” she said. “The senior homelessness increase really tells us what is driving a lot of the homelessness crisis, which is price gouging. It is the cost of rent that goes over and above what would be reasonable profit.”
Rosenthal, who supports expanding rent control laws, said that elected officials are not doing what is needed to address a long-brewing affordable housing crisis.
“The housing crisis in LA is skyrocketing,” she said. “The mass displacement and homelessness that we’re seeing is due to a lack of political will on behalf of our representative to really solve the crisis in a meaningful way.”
Service providers echoed the idea that economic insecurity has been a major driver of homeless. Spiraling rents and the shortage of transitional housing continue to be significant factors, said Tahia Hayslet, executive director of Harbor Interfaith Services in San Pedro.
She said more families are living in cars and other vehicles, but the organization, which serves both the Harbor Area and the South Bay, also has managed to house hundreds of homeless individuals and families, working with about 450 clients a year.
“The challenge is rents are still being increased,” Hayslet said. “But with funding we do have prevention dollars so we’re really trying to educate the community, don’t wait until you’re homeless.”
Simone Best, a member of the West Hills Neighborhood Council, said she is concerned by the growing homelessness in the San Fernando Valley, but said the overall numbers serve as validation that recent ballot measures and other efforts seem to have helped get more people off the streets.
She said she is also worried about opposition in her community to shelters and supportive housing, and is watching the outcome of a proposed Koreatown shelter, which has faced numerous protests from some neighbors who said they were not given a chance to weigh in on the project.
“I was under the impression that a lot of outreach had been done, but I’m not 100 percent up to speed on the process that they did go through,” Best said. “In the Valley we’re looking at obviously building some bridge housing there and we’re hoping if there were mistakes made, we’re hoping to not repeat those mistakes.”
Best added that she can understand the “fear” that people might have about shelters and other facilities coming to their communities.
“I live in a very affluent community,” she said. “I understand the fear. I talk to my neighbors who are afraid. But we’ve got to work on bringing down that fear, because a lot of homeless people, we shouldn’t be afraid of them. That’s got to turn around.”
She said that she is “on a neighborhood council, and one of the things that we have is we know how to talk to the local people, because we are the local people.”
“We know what is scaring them,” she said. “We know what they feel good about. We know what they want their community to look like.”
And while some are working to allay fears in some communities, others say there also needs to be an effort to ease the distrust that some who are experiencing homelessness might have of law enforcement and sanitation crews that come to remove their tents.
Jed Parriott, an activist who opposes laws that criminalize homelessness, said that while more funding is now available for services and housing, some Los Angeles city law enforcement practices affecting homeless people may hurt future efforts to reduce homelessness.
“I agree we don’t want people living on the street at all, but the way to do that is not to police and kick them out — it’s to provide resources,” such as housing and mental health counseling, said Parriott.
The biggest drops in homelessness occurred in West Los Angeles, which saw 926 fewer people experiencing homelessness; and South Los Angeles, where the number of homeless people decreased by 719 people. The Antelope Valley and downtown Los Angeles, which has the largest share of the homeless population with 14,425 people, saw their numbers decrease by 3 percent or 419 people.
During a news conference in East Hollywood to announce the results, public officials called the numbers encouraging and said it was an indication that additional dollars put into services and housing were working.
“You ought to look at your neighbors and say, this is Measure H at work,” County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas said, referring to a countywide sales tax measure that is expected to bring in $350 million to fund outreach, shelters and services aimed at helping people escape homelessness.
But they added that more hard work is needed to continue the progress.
“Now is not the time to slow down,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn said. “Because tonight, there will still be 53,000 individuals living on our streets and experiencing homelessness. And they need to know that help is on the way.”