2023 Homeless Count: How We Can Come Together to Address Unsheltered Homelessness

If you want to read more about improvements to the 2023 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, click here.

If you want to see the 2023 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count data, click here.

The data collected during the 2023 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count confirmed what we already know: homelessness in Los Angeles has increased in the last year.

This year, we estimate that 75,518 people experience homelessness on any given night in Los Angeles County, and 46,260 people do so in the city of Los Angeles.

To change this trajectory, governments across Los Angeles County need to come together on a coordinated path forward to address unsheltered homelessness.

New leadership at several levels of government is taking bold action to address unsheltered homelessness. Since January

• Mayor Bass declared homelessness a state of emergency in LA and launched Inside Safe, which has sheltered over 1,200 people via 17 encampment efforts in a few short months.
• The Board of Supervisors declared a state of emergency in LA County is gearing up to launch its Pathway Home program to do similar work in other cities and unincorporated areas in the county.
• Other local Cities declared states of emergency, including Long Beach, Santa Monica, and Culver City.
• The state of California granted dedicated Encampment Resolution funds.
• The Biden/Harris Administration selected Los Angeles to participate in ALL-INside, their signature new program to reduce unsheltered homelessness.

On top of these efforts, LAHSA is developing a new Multi-Disciplinary Crisis Response Team (MDCRT). When clients work with LAHSA staff, they often work with staff from one department after the other based on their needs and the progress they have made toward housing. The MDCRT will bring together staff from across departments to resolve clients’ homelessness faster than was previously possible.

“With alignment and coordination of resources and a strategic direction that focuses us, it’s incredible to see how much we can do together when we’re not being too spread out,” Dr. Adams Kellum said.

We’re also working to improve the speed at which clients can move into permanent housing. Currently, there are 45 days between a unit being leased up and the client receiving a certificate of occupancy, but our goal is to reduce that to 15-to-30 days.

These are just some of the ways our community is coming together to address unsheltered homelessness in the Los Angeles area. In the coming months, this blog will take a closer look at several of the other improvements LAHSA is making to address street homelessness in Los Angeles.