The 2023 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count results were released just before the holiday, showing a 9 percent rise in homelessness on any given night in Los Angeles County to an estimated 75,518 people and a 10 percent rise in the City of Los Angeles to an estimated 46,260 people.
The rise in L.A. County’s homeless population coincides with increases in major cities across the United States, while several Southern California counties experienced increases larger than Los Angeles, including San Bernadino (+26 percent), San Diego (+22 percent), Kern (+22 percent) and Riverside (+12 percent).
Since the 2015 count, homelessness has increased by 70 percent in the county and 80 percent in the city.
Among L.A.’s Service Planning Areas (SPAs), SPA 4, which covers Hollywood, West Hollywood, Downtown, Silver Lake and Midcity, had the largest population of unhoused people.
The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) did note that both L.A. City and County have decreased the time it takes to move someone from the street to interim housing. That timeline now stands at an average of 61 days for the adult population, down nearly half from 110 in early 2021.
LAHSA has seen an even stronger improvement with the transition-aged youth) population, where the amount of time was cut by more than 50 percent, from 127 days to 59. Not only are placements happening faster, but they are also happening more often, with the data showing that these improvements coincide with a nearly 30 percent increase in interim housing placements.
Along with the annual homeless count numbers, the County also announced the formation of a Multi-Department Crisis Response Team (MDCRT). The MDCRT will internally position LAHSA to better partner with the City and County to implement policies that will reduce unsheltered homelessness, like master and batch leasing, scaling up the leasing process, expanding housing navigation, and ensuring document readiness among people experiencing homelessness. The MDCRT can potentially cut the number of days it takes to move someone inside down to the tens.
Earlier this month, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass announced that in the first six months of her administration, more than 14,000 people moved from L.A.’s streets to interim or permanent housing, with over 4,300 obtaining permanent housing. More than 1,300 of those placements came through the mayor’s Inside Safe program.
The City and the County are on track to create approximately 8,200 affordable homes this year, per the release.