“One-time federal pandemic assistance and policies helped keep people in their homes and expanded shelters,” said Kristina Dixon, co-executive director of Lahsa, hinting at a potentially worsening crisis. Even with restrictions in place, thousands of renters have been evicted during the pandemic. The new figures come as LA moves to end its Covid-era protections against evictions and rent increases by the end of the year, paving the way for more displacement. Lahsa leaders emphasized that the root cause of the crisis was a lack of affordable housing and suggested the region needed to add 800,000 units over the next eight years to stem the crisis. Still, Lahsa said that overdoses among LA’s unhoused population had increased by 80%. Officials said nearly 40% of unhoused people were experiencing substance abuse disorders and/or serious mental illness, meaning the majority of people experiencing homelessness suffer from neither. Latinos make up 49% of LA county residents. There has also been a substantial increase in unhoused Latino residents, who now make up 44% of the unhoused population. There continues to be severe racial disparities in the crisis, with Black residents making up 30% of unhoused Angelenos, while accounting for only 9% of the broader population. Officials estimated that there had been 17% increase in people living in tents, vehicles and makeshift shelters during the pandemic. Within the city’s homeless population, 68%, or 28,458 people, were considered unsheltered.Īt a press briefing, Lahsa leaders acknowledged residents may not feel as if homelessness is rising at a rate slower than pre-pandemic years and said that was probably due in part to a substantial jump in visible signs of homelessness. In the city of LA, officials counted 41,980 unhoused people, marking a 1.7% increase from the 2020 count and a slower increase from previous years. While cities across the US are grappling with worsening housing crises and inequality, LA and California have faced particularly intense scrutiny over a problem that seems intractable despite the state having the fifth-largest economy in the world, a budget surplus and some of the nation’s wealthiest neighborhoods. An average of five unhoused people now die every day in LA county, some due to extreme summer heat or hypothermia in the winter. The humanitarian disaster in the largest county in the US has pushed unhoused people to live outside in tents, encampments, cars, RVs and makeshift structures, scattered under freeways and bridges, in major city parks and beach communities, on streets and sidewalks, and in remote desert terrain. While the count suggests some progress compared to previous spikes, 70% of the county’s unhoused population are still living outside, with 48,548 people considered unsheltered – rates that are significantly higher than other US cities with homelessness crises. The new figures are a rough estimate from a single day and are believed to be an undercount.
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