LOS ANGELES (CNS) – The Greater Los Angeles region experienced a second consecutive year-over-year decline in people experiencing homelessness, according to figures released Monday, but authorities warned that more housing will be needed to continue the downward trend.
The annual point-in-time homeless count showed there was a 4% decrease in homeless people across the county, while in the city of Los Angeles, there was a 3.4% drop, according to data released by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which was created as a joint city-county organization overseeing funding and programming to address the homelessness crisis. Los Angeles County has since opted to pull funding from the agency and create its own homelessness department.
“Homelessness has gone down two years in a row because we chose to act with urgency and reject the broken status quote of leaving people on the street until housing was built,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement responding to the latest numbers.
Data showed that unsheltered homelessness in the county declined by 9.5% in 2025 compared to the prior year, and it has dropped by 14% over the last two years. Additionally, there has been about an 8.5% increase of unhoused individuals entering interim housing, such as shelters and other forms of temporary housing.
In the city of L.A., unsheltered homelessness declined by 7.9% in 2025, and it has dropped by 17.5% over the last two years. LAHSA reported there has been a 4.7% increase in unhoused individuals entering temporary housing in the city.
The 2025 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count was conducted over the course of three days, Feb. 18-20, after it was postponed in January due to the devastating wildfires that ravaged areas of L.A. County and city.
LAHSA cited city and county initiatives such as Inside Safe and A Pathway Home for the decline in unsheltered homelessness. The agency also touted an increase in permanent housing placements, a record high of 27,994 in 2024, which has contributed to the positive results.
LAHSA noted that the region still needs more than 485,000 affordable housing units to meet the need in the region.
County Supervisors Lindsey Horvath, Kathryn Barger, and Hilda Solis hailed the homeless count results, and also noted that more work remains.
“But 72,308 people are still living without permanent shelter. We can, and must, do more,” Horvath said in a statement. “At this pace, it would take three centuries to end homelessness in Los Angeles County. Every day, seven lives are being lost on our streets — an unacceptable reality that demands bold, coordinated action.”
She noted that the county’s new homelessness department will meet the urgency of the moment, adding that it is expected to “streamline services, break through bureaucracy, and deliver results across all 88 cities and unincorporated communities.”
Solis and Barger echoed their colleague in statements issued Monday afternoon, which similarly noted that the new county entity will strengthen efforts to reduce homelessness.
Homelessness in the county in 2019 stood at 58,936 people, with the city of Los Angeles accounting for a majority of that figure with 35,550 individuals.
In the following years, homelessness ballooned across the L.A. region as a result of several factors, such as a lack of affordable housing and the coronavirus pandemic. The crisis reached its highest point in 2023 when LAHSA recorded 75,518 homeless people in the county with 46,260 of them in the city.
Elected officials and homeless service providers marked 2024 as a pivotal point when the annual homeless count showed the first decline — a slight decline — in homelessness. That year, LAHSA recorded 75,312 homeless people in the county with 45,252 of them in the city.
In 2025, those figures further dropped to 72,308 homeless people in the county, with about 43,669 of them in the city.
Across the region, there was a 12.6% decrease in various encampments on streets, LAHSA reported, meaning there was a reduction of people living in their cars, vans, recreational vehicles, tents and other makeshift shelters.
The city of Los Angeles experienced a similar reduction in temporary street encampments of about 13.5%. In 2024, LAHSA recorded 12,717 street dwellings compared to 11,010 of these structures in 2025.
The homeless count encompasses what is known as the Los Angeles Continuum of Care, covering most cities and unincorporated areas in the region except Pasadena, Glendale and Long Beach.
According to the 2025 Homeless Count, data continued to show a disproportionate number of Black people experiencing homelessness, while Latinos remain the largest ethnic group experiencing homelessness in the region.
Benjamin Henwood, director of the Homelessness Policy Research Institute at USC, told City News Service in a telephone interview there was a margin of error of about plus-or-minus 1,300 people, based on a 1.75 multiplier.
The USC team conducted a separate survey, during which members interviewed about 5,000 unsheltered people, who were encountered at randomly selected Census tracts through the county. Henwood said the margin of error comes from estimating the number of unsheltered people who live in those dwelling units.
“For most people seeing these numbers and seeing fewer people on the streets, and more people in shelters, is interpreted as a step in the right direction,” Henwood told CNS.
“To be clear, and we have seen an overall decrease in numbers, which again is a positive sign, but shelter, in and of itself, is not a solution to homelessness,” he added.
He emphasized that the homelessness crisis is challenging to address but he hoped that we will continue to make progress.
“I don’t know that this should be regarded as a celebration of sorts, given the difficulties ahead, especially with the changing federal landscape,” Henwood added.
The Trump administration has stated its intent to reduce federal funding for an initiative known as the Housing Choice Voucher Program, or Section 8, which helps low-income families, elderly people, veterans and disabled individuals afford housing.
At the state and county levels, due to budget constraints, funding for homeless services was also reduced.
Meanwhile, federal immigration enforcement activities are a cause for concern as well.
“…That could have an indirect impact, or really a direct impact on our homelessness rates, given how those ICE (U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement) raids affect the labor market,” Henwood added. “So, that’s also a big concern beyond just like the homeless service system.”
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