LOS ANGELES (CN) — The number of homeless people living in Los Angeles has fallen by 2% compared to last year, according to results from the metroplex's annual homeless count released on Friday.
Though that decrease is within the margin of error and therefore not statistically significant, the number of unsheltered homeless people sleeping on the streets and in tents, makeshift encampments and cars did drop notably, by about 10%.
The count, conducted by the LA Homeless Services Authority or LAHSA, is a point-in-time count. It's meant to be both a snapshot and an estimate, with the exact number of people experiencing homelessness fluctuating throughout the year.
To conduct the count, thousands of volunteers walk every block in the county over a single weekend. Data is gathered in January, with results released in June.
According this year's count, there were 45,252 homeless people in Los Angeles city in January, including 15,977 who were living in shelters and 29,275 without shelter. Those figures mean 35% of all homeless people were sleeping in some form of interim housing — a much higher proportion than in recent years.
The numbers reflect policy adopted by Mayor Karen Bass, who has prioritized getting homeless people into interim housing through her signature program, Inside Safe.
“For so many years, the count has shown increases in homelessness, and we have all felt that in our neighborhoods," Mayor Bass said in a written statement. "But we leaned into change. And we have changed the trajectory of this crisis and have moved L.A. in a new direction."
Mayor Bass also hailed a 38% decrease in makeshift shelters on the street. She said the number of homeless people moved into permanent housing is "at an all time high."
Even still, Shayla Myers, a senior attorney at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, warned that the numbers "may be a result of the city erasing the visible evidence of homelessness on the streets."
"Less people unhoused is definitely better," said Myers. "More people having a place to stay overnight is definitely better. My concern is that we have deep investments in shelters and less investments in permanent housing. Lots of people fall out of shelter and back into homelessness."
At the county level, there were 75,312 homeless people in January, down just 0.3% from last year. But the unsheltered population in the county also decreased significantly, by about 5%.
In 2016, Los Angeles city voters passed Proposition HHH, a $1.2 billion bond measure earmarked for new homeless housing. The next year, county voters also passed Measure H, a quarter-cent sales tax hike to fund mental health care services for the chronically homeless and some housing construction. That program is due to sunset in 2027 — but in November, voters will vote on a new measure that would double the homeless tax and make it permanent.
Despite the new decrease in homelessness, the results of these two ballot measures have nonetheless drawn criticism.
Some say the new shelter buildings are too expensive. One recently completed project, the 19-story Weingart Tower, received widespread media attention for its cost: $165 million for 278 units — or, as a number of outlets put it, about $600,000-per-unit. (That per-unit price tag is misleading, since Weingart Tower also includes amenities like a gym, cafe, computer lab and dog run.)
Others critics say progress has simply been too slow. The drop in homelessness comes after five straight years of increases, including last year, when homelessness rose by about 10%.
The count's results were released on the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is not unconstitutional for cities to ban camping on the streets.
That case — which started with a legal fight between homeless advocates and the city of Grants Pass, Oregon — overturned a 2018 Ninth Circuit ruling, Martin v. Boise, which effectively barred cities taking down encampments unless there were available shelter beds nearby. Martin placed a number of legal restrictions around how cities were able to remove homeless encampments from their streets, though LA has banned camping in many zones throughout the city.
Reaction to the Supreme Court ruling by California politicians was surprisingly mixed. Bass slammed the ruling, saying it should "not be used as an excuse for cities across the country to attempt to arrest their way out of this problem or hide the homelessness crisis in neighboring cities or in jail."
"Neither will work [and] neither will save lives," Bass said. "That route is more expensive for taxpayers than actually solving the problem."
But Governor Gavin Newsom praised the ruling, saying it would remove "the legal ambiguities that have tied the hands of local officials for years and limited their ability to deliver on common-sense measures to protect the safety and well-being of our communities."
Myers, the Legal Aid attorney, said she thought the ruling would have little impact on LA, which has taken a far more nuanced approach to restricting camping than Grants Pass.
"I think that voters and organizers have made it clear that the city should not be criminalizing homelessness," Myers said.
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