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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.
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.
People walk past a homeless encampment near a Target store on Sept. 28, 2023 in Los Angeles. State and local lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, are seeking to overturn lower court decisions which currently block their power to clear encampments of unhoused people. Dozens of leaders, many from Western states including California, have turned to the Supreme Court to overturn the rulings. Skid Row is home to thousands of people who either live on the streets or in shelters. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
A homeless encampment is seen along a roadside in Los Angeles on Dec. 6, 2022. Tens of thousands of people sleep rough on Los Angeles’ streets, in an epidemic that shocks many visitors to one of the wealthiest urban areas on the planet. (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)
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.
