LOS ANGELES (CNS) – Hundreds of volunteers will fan out across the San Fernando Valley and metro Los Angeles area Tuesday evening to begin the annual three-night Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count.
The tally provides a point-in-time snapshot of homelessness throughout the L.A. Continuum of Care — which covers most of the region except the cities of Long Beach, Pasadena and Glendale, which will conduct their respective counts.
The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority is expected to release the results in late spring or early summer.
Gita O’Neill, LAHSA interim CEO, will provide remarks at a 7 p.m. briefing Tuesday at Inner City Law Center, 1309 E. Seventh St., to mark the first night of the operation.
City Councilwoman Nithya Raman, chair of the Housing and Homeless Committee, Daniella Urbina, a senior adviser to L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis, Amber Sheikh, LAHSA Commission chair, Adam Murray, Inner City Law Center CEO, and Martin Holguin, Liver Experience Advisory Board treasurer, are also expected to participate in the event.
Also Tuesday, The Hollywood Partnership, a management organization for the Hollywood Entertainment District, will organize the “Hollywood Pit Stop.” Volunteers will gather at 6000 Hollywood Blvd. at 7:30 p.m. before deploying to count homeless individuals in the Hollywood area.
Kathleen Rawson, CEO of The Hollywood Partnership, and City Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez will lead the event.
Volunteers in the San Gabriel Valley and East Los Angeles will count on Wednesday. The count will wrap up Thursday in the Antelope Valley, West and South Los Angeles, and the South Bay/Harbor region.
Ahead of the count, LAHSA officials said they enacted several improvements for the operation.
The homelessness agency will be using an app-based data collection process for the fourth year in a row and improved maps, assigning more staff to provide technical support and help with supply distribution at deployment sites, and to ensure volunteers collect their materials to get the count done quickly and efficiently.
LAHSA also simplified training materials to improve the volunteer experience and ensure consistency across LA county.
The agency is coordinating with the county’s Department of Health Services and Emergency Centralized Response Center for additional staff support. This improvement is expected to aid in “special consideration” census tracts and areas, and more rugged locations such as basins, creeks and deserts that are too dangerous, hard-to-reach or inaccessible for community volunteers.
Lastly, the processes for the Housing Inventory (sheltered) and Youth counts have been overhauled to improve response rates and generate bigger samples.
The Youth Count will be conducted over nine additional days for those aged 10 to 19. In a similar fashion, the Housing Inventory Count will begin earlier to optimize data review and make it easier to validate responses.
Recent Comments