Homeless Population Declines in Los Angeles for Second Straight Year

U.S.|Homeless Population Declines in Los Angeles for a Second Straight Year

Homelessness declined in Los Angeles for the second year in a row, a key survey showed on Monday, marking a sustained drop in the number of people sleeping outdoors amid a yearslong push to bring people out of street encampments.

The results of the regional count, conducted in February, were viewed as generally positive news in the nation’s second-largest city, which saw a spike in homelessness after the Covid-19 pandemic and has been vexed by a severe housing shortage.

Even with the declines, more than 72,000 people remain homeless in Los Angeles County, a sprawling and fragmented metropolis with a population of about 10 million people.

In particular, the number of people sleeping in vehicles, abandoned buildings, sidewalk camps and other places unfit for habitation declined from the year before by 9.5 percent in Los Angeles County and by 7.9 percent in the City of Los Angeles.

Over two years, the count showed that unsheltered homelessness fell cumulatively by 14 percent in Los Angeles County and by a record 17.5 percent in the city, as thousands of people moved indoors.

Local officials attributed the trend to a regionwide barrage of initiatives and to billions of dollars in public spending over the past several years, including countywide taxes to help fund affordable housing and a state of emergency on homelessness declared by Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles after her 2022 election.