The number of people living on the streets — in the city of Los Angeles and in much of Los Angeles County — is higher than last year, posing a new challenge for Mayor Karen Bass as she runs for re-election.
Homelessness is up 3.4% citywide compared to last year, according to two people familiar with the numbers released by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority in sealed documents.
The number of homeless people in LA — those living outside or in their cars — saw the biggest jump, rising 7.9% after two consecutive years of decline, those sources said. Both asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the LAHSA presentation, which focused on the results of the annual points tally conducted in January.
The numbers represent a major setback for Bass, who is seeking a second term in the Nov. 3 election and has made fighting homelessness a central part of his platform, pinning his administration’s progress on getting people into homes.
Bass, in a statement, stated that this increase was caused by many problems, including the reduction of funds by the state governments and the federal government. He cited a lack of adequate county resources, such as mental health and substance abuse counseling, as part of the problem.
Even with those setbacks, the city has reduced unsheltered homelessness by double digits since 2023, while also housing more than 1,000 homeless veterans, Bass said.
“This problem has been ignored by city leaders for decades, and now we have seen a historic decline,” he said. “I will not stop fighting until we end homelessness on the streets, because no Angeleno should be sleeping on the streets.”
LAHSA has been briefing city and county officials in preparation for Friday’s release of the numbers. The agency did not immediately provide comment on the latest figure.
Bass is running against City Council member Nithya Raman, who heads the council’s housing and homelessness committee. Last year, Bass also reported a 17.5% drop in the homeless population over two years in LA — a decline that offers signs of hope in a region where homelessness has been on the rise for a decade.
Inside Safe, the mayor’s signature homeless program, has moved more than 6,000 people into hotels, motels and other forms of temporary housing since Bass took office in December 2022. But as of May 31, 41% of those people had returned to homelessness, according to LAHSA statistics compiled separately from this year’s homeless population.
The increase in homelessness is “bad for Los Angeles, so it’s bad for the incumbent mayor,” said political science professor Fernando Guerra, who directs the Los Angeles Center for the Study of Loyola Marymount University.
“For his political campaign, there is nothing good about this figure,” he said. “It goes against his main campaign theme. It goes against the success of his first term. It goes against the narrative of his reasons for running for re-election.”
Bass had already faced many challenges this summer: anger over the long cleanup from the Lineage fire in Boyle Heights, where odors and insects invaded the surrounding area; major water breaks, including one that caused major flooding; and questions about the overlapping roles held by the crisis communications coordinator who advises his office for free.
Homeless numbers this year were not as bad in other parts of the county.
Homelessness increased 1.2% in the “care process,” which covers 85 cities in Los Angeles County’s 88, including LA, according to people familiar with the numbers presented by LAHSA. Homelessness among homeless people in those communities increased by 3.5%, those sources said. (Long Beach, Pasadena and Glendale do their own math.)
Last year, LAHSA reported a 4% drop in the number of homeless people in those cities, and a 10% drop in the number of people living on the streets.
LA County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, in her statement, described the point-in-time calculation as a single data point and “not the whole picture.”
“People experiencing homelessness – and the communities affected by this problem – are not interested in debates about rates,” she said. “They care deeply about what they see on our streets — whether it’s people getting into homes, getting the care they need, and being accountable for how their tax dollars are spent.”
The setback comes at a difficult time not only for Bass but also for LAHSA, the city-state’s federal agency that has been a major target of the Trump administration, which moved last month to stop LAHSA from seeking or receiving funding for housing and homeless programs.
LAHSA sued the federal government to stop that effort, which is now on hold.
Last year, the LA County Board of Supervisors voted to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from LAHSA, transferring the money to a new county-run agency focused on homelessness. The organization was launched on July 1.
At the time, LAHSA officials were reducing their staff. At the time, LA city officials were considering withdrawing from the organization.
Bass sits on LAHSA’s 10-member board and appoints four of its own members. The other five were elected by the district administration.
In his statement, Bass acknowledged the issues facing LAHSA, saying city leaders “need to look at what’s not working.”
“The audits and the lawsuits have made clear what many Angelenos already saw: money was not tracked, providers were not paid, and public trust was broken,” the mayor said. “I will not defend a broken system. The City needs to build something better – results-driven, transparent, and focused on the people we’re trying to help, not the bureaucracy.”
