Los Angeles County is recruiting up to 6,000 volunteers to count homeless people around the city. The effort began Tuesday night and is expected to take three days, officials said.
The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority-led street tally helps the county government’s efforts to tackle a homeless crisis, which has crippled the city with tens of thousands of people living on the streets, living in cars, tents and makeshift street shelters. These temporary homes have proliferated on sidewalks and in parks and other community areas.
The so-called “point-in-time” count aims to estimate how many people are unhoused and what financial or medical services they may require for potential mental health conditions or from drug addiction.
This count comes as California residents have grown increasingly frustrated over lawmakers’ failure to deter the surging homeless population. Since 2015, homelessness has increased by 70% in Los Angeles County and 80% in the city.
CALIFORNIA’S NEXT CRISIS? EXPERTS RACE TO SOLVE EXPLOSION IN LOS ANGELES STRAY CAT POPULATION
In 2023, officials reported more than 75,500 people were homeless on any given night in LA County, a 9% rise from a year earlier, and about 46,200 within the city of Los Angeles.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat, kicked off the count Tuesday night in the North Hollywood neighborhood of LA’s San Fernando Valley.
“Homelessness is an emergency, and it will take all of us working together to confront this emergency,” Bass said in a statement, calling the count “an important tool to confront the homelessness crisis.”
Bass declared a state of emergency on homelessness on her first day in office in Dec. 2022.
She has announced that over 21,000 unhoused people were moved into leased hotels or other temporary shelter throughout 2023. The city has also cleared out street encampments and has additional housing projects planned, she said last month.
The LA County homeless annual tally is mandated by the federal government for Los Angeles and other cities to qualify for certain federal funding.
Its results are expected to be released in late spring or early summer.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
