After being postponed because of the recent wildfires, the Los Angeles County Homeless Services Authority’s 2025 tally of people who are homeless is slated for next week.
The count was originally scheduled to take place over three days last month, starting on Tuesday, Jan. 21. But because of the devastation wrought by the Eaton, Palisades and other fires, the county moved the tally back.
LAHSA, the agency charged with conducting the homeless count, said previously the survey was postponed because the fires displaced homeless people and disrupted essential supportive services.
Now, thousands of volunteers are gearing up to fan out over a 4,000 square-mile region in L.A. County to conduct the 2025 homeless count, starting on Tuesday, Feb. 18, in the San Fernando and Santa Clarita Valleys, alongside metro L.A., according to a LAHSA news release.
The count will continue in the San Gabriel Valley and East L.A. on Wednesday, Feb. 19, with the survey set to conclude on Thursday, Feb. 20, as volunteers tally Antelope Valley, West L.A., South L.A., the South Bay and Harbor area.
“We’re facing unprecedented challenges this year, so the success of the homeless count depends now more than ever on community involvement,” LAHSA CEO Va Lecia Adams Kellum said. “We urge everyone who can join us as a volunteer.”
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development requires local governments with a Continuum of Care — a body funded by HUD responsible for coordinating housing and services for homeless people — to conduct tallies in order to access federal funding.
In LA County, Long Beach, Pasadena and Glendale conduct their own counts. Long Beach held its homeless count last month. Glendale is scheduled to hold its on Tuesday, while Pasadena’s is on Wednesday and Thursday.
LAHSA’s homeless count, meanwhile, consists of four different data sources, according to its website. The three-day street count, kicking off on Tuesday, is a visual tally of people without shelter.
The agency’s service providers and volunteers, LAHSA said, also conduct the youth count — a tally of unaccompanied and unsheltered youth under 25 and families.
LAHSA also contracts a survey team from USC to collect demographic information from homeless people, its website said, and the agency conducts a one-night count to determine the amount of people in shelters and transitional housing.
All of the data collected helps LAHSA officials compile a more comprehensive picture of the scope and nature of homelessness in Los Angeles.
LAHSA recorded 75,312 homeless people during the 2024 count — nearly unchanged from the 75,518 people recorded in 2023. That relative stability in the homeless population, though, was welcome news after homelessness jumped by 9.1% from 2022 to 2023.
The 2024 results also showed that a record number of people had moved off the streets and into some form of shelter. The number of unsheltered people — people living in tents, vehicles and makeshift shelters — dropped by 5.1%, for example, while people living in shelters rose by 12.7%.
Despite the relatively good news from last year’s results, some experts said, it would be best to wait for numbers from the 2025 count to see if the trend would continue.
And it’s unclear that trend will continue, especially as the region races to grapple with the thousands of people displaced by the Palisades and Eaton fires, alongside those who were homeless before the fires burned.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger recently called on property owners with available rental units to help people displaced by the Eaton fire — which destroyed more than 6,000 homes. The Palisades fire, meanwhile, destroyed around 7,800 structures, according to CalFire.
“Many of these families are struggling to rebuild their lives while ensuring stability for their children,” Barger, whose district includes Altadena, said on Thursday, Feb. 13. “I urge property owners with available units to partner with us and provide a lifeline for those in need.”
The county’s Development Authority is also working with the American Red Cross to find one- and two-bedroom rentals within a 10-mile radius of the Eaton fire — and the L.A. City Council also preliminarily approved an ordinance to prohibit price gouging on housing and lodging.
That ordinance, which the council gave the initial OK to on Wednesday, Feb. 12, would prohibit landlords from significantly raising rent and charging fees for rent-related services during a declared emergency — and hotel and motel owners would be barred from raising rates by more than 10%.
The results of LAHSA’s homeless count, meanwhile, will likely help the county get a better grasp on how fire-related displacements have changed the region’s homeless population.
The results are expected to be released in the spring.
For those who want to volunteer for the count, visit count.lahsa.org.