A Los Angeles city and county joint powers agency is seeking volunteers to assist for its 2025 homeless count, which is expected to take place over a three-day period in January.
The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority recently launched its volunteer registration form on its website, count.lahsa.org. Thousands of volunteers will travel in small groups and spread across about 4,000 square miles of LA County in late January to collect data on unsheltered homelessness, tallying individual tents, vehicles and makeshift shelters they see in their assigned census tracts.
“Last year’s Homeless Count marked the first decrease in street homelessness that Los Angeles has seen in years,” said LAHSA CEO Va Lecia Adams Kellum said in a statement.
“As we gear up for this year’s count, community support is crucial. We need thousands of volunteers to join us in counting our unhoused neighbors so we can better understand where they are, the services they need most and what it will take to bring them home,” she added.
In 2016, the agency began conducting its annual homeless count to collect data and provide an analysis of people experiencing homelessness in the L.A. Continuum of Care, covering most of the county except for Pasadena, Glendale and Long Beach, which have separate health authorities.
On Jan. 21, volunteers will traverse the San Fernando Valley and LA Metro areas for the count. The following day, volunteers will conduct the count in the San Gabriel Valley and East Los Angeles communities. Volunteers will wrap up the final day in the Antelope Valley, West and South Los Angeles, as well as the South Bay and Harbor region.
The count consists of three parts — the unsheltered and youth count, sheltered count and a demographic survey. LAHSA officials say they depend on its volunteers for the count.
LAHSA is expected to collect data for its youth count from Jan. 22-31, and complete its housing inventory count on Jan. 22.
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According to the results of the 2024 Homeless Count, homelessness slightly decreased in the LA region with some progress in addressing unsheltered homelessness, which found the following:
— There were 75,312 unhoused people in the county in 2024 compared to 75,518 in 2023, a dip of 0.27%
— There were 45,252 unhoused individuals in the city of L.A. in 2024 compared to 46,260 in 2023, a drop of 2.2%
— There was a reduction in unsheltered homelessness in L.A. County, with a 5.1% decrease compared to last year, while the shelter count increased by 12.7%
— Unsheltered homelessness in the city of L.A. decreased by approximately 10.7%, while the shelter count increased by 17.7%