Saved analyses
LA homeless count, county and city, 2015-2026
Question: How many people were counted homeless in LA County and the City of Los Angeles each year?
Result: County: 44,359 (2015), 46,874 (2016), 75,518 peak (2023), 73,040 (2026). City: 25,686 (2015), 28,464 (2016), 46,260 peak (2023), 45,194 (2026). No 2021 count.
Operation: Reshape the counts table to one row per year and area
Scope: counts table, all years
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- Each count is one night; methods and volunteer coverage vary by year, and RAND found the official count missed a growing share of unsheltered people in three neighborhoods in 2024-2025.
- Figures are as first released; LAHSA sometimes revises the prior year (its 2026 change uses a revised 2025 base).
- 2021 is missing because no unsheltered count was conducted during COVID-19.
Selected LA homelessness budgets by fiscal year
Question: How large were city homelessness budgets and county Homeless Initiative plans in years with a documented total?
Result: City: $139M (FY2016-17), $428.5M (FY2019-20), about $1.3B (FY2023-24). County Homeless Initiative: $259M (FY2017-18), $783M (FY2024-25), $908M (FY2025-26).
Operation: Reshape the spending table to one row per fiscal year and series; years without a documented figure are null
Scope: spending table
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- Budgets and spending plans, not audited spending; the city left $473-513 million unspent in each of FY2024 and FY2025, per its Controller.
- Nominal dollars, not adjusted for inflation.
- City and county figures overlap (both fund LAHSA) and exclude state and federal money passed directly to providers, so they must not be summed into a regional total.
- Most years are missing because no consistent public series was found.
Change in the LA homeless count over key periods
Question: How much did the homeless count change since the spending surge began and since its 2023 peak?
Result: County total +55.8% and city total +58.8% from 2016 to 2026; county total -3.3% and city total -2.3% from the 2023 peak; unsheltered -11.2% (county) and -10.9% (city) from 2023 to 2026.
Operation: Percent change between count years: (end / start - 1) x 100
Scope: counts table
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- Descriptive changes between single-night estimates, not causal effects of spending.
- The 2023-2026 declines are small relative to the counts' uncertainty; LAHSA said neither 2026 change was statistically significant.
Growth in LA homelessness budgets
Question: How many times larger did city and county homelessness budgets become?
Result: City homelessness budget: 9.4 times larger, FY2016-17 to FY2023-24. County Homeless Initiative plan: 3.5 times larger, FY2017-18 to FY2025-26.
Operation: Ratio of end-year to start-year amount
Scope: spending table
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- Nominal dollars; budgets, not actual spending.
- FY2023-24 was the city's peak; its FY2024-25 budget was lower (about $960 million).
Growth in homelessness budgets compared with growth in the homeless count
Question: How much did homelessness budgets grow compared with the number of people counted homeless?
Result: The city's homelessness budget grew 9.4-fold and the county's Homeless Initiative plan 3.5-fold, while the homeless count grew 1.56-fold countywide and 1.59-fold in the city.
Operation: Ratio of end value to start value for each budget series (spending table) and each count series (counts table), rounded
Scope: spending and counts tables
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- Periods differ by series: budgets use the documented anchor years, counts use 2016 and 2026.
- Budgets are nominal and not adjusted for inflation; the city budget fell back to nearly $1 billion by 2026, which would make its multiple about 7.
- A larger budget alongside a larger count does not show the spending had no effect; homelessness might have grown more without it.
Where people went when they left City-funded interim housing
Question: Did people leaving City-funded interim housing reach permanent housing?
Result: In a sample of FY2023-24 sites, the median permanent-housing exit rate was about 22.0%, while 47.8% of exits went to homelessness.
Operation: Transcribed from the Alvarez & Marsal assessment's FY2023-24 site sample
Scope: am-assessment, Executive Summary, p. 6
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- A sample of sites in one year, reported by the court-appointed assessor from city and LAHSA data.
- The two figures are computed differently (a median site rate and a share of exits) and need not sum with other exits to 100%.
la_homeless_counts.csv
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