Los Angeles County’s annual homeless count has begun, a critical component of the region’s attempts to address the situation of tens of thousands of people living on the streets.
Up to 6,000 volunteers from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority on Tuesday night, spread out for the effort’s main component, the unsheltered street tally.
Los Angeles County’s project is the largest among such projects in major cities across the country.
The tally, which also includes demographic surveys and shelter counts, is required by the federal government for localities to obtain specific types of financing.
The count this year comes amid growing public fury over the perceived failure of costly measures to reduce the growing population of people living in cars, tents, and makeshift street shelters.
According to the 2023 initiative, more over 75,500 persons were homeless on any given night in Los Angeles County, a 9 percent increase over the previous year.
About 46,200 were in Los Angeles, where public dissatisfaction has escalated as tents have spread on sidewalks, parks, and other sites.
Since 2015, homelessness has increased by 70 percent in the county and 80 percent in the city.
Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, joined city and county officials to kick off the count on Tuesday night in the North Hollywood neighbourhood of LA’s San Fernando Valley.
The count “is an important tool to confront the homelessness crisis,” Bass said in a statement. “Homelessness is an emergency, and it will take all of us working together to confront this emergency.”
Homelessness remains hugely visible throughout California with people living in tents and cars and sleeping outdoors on sidewalks and under highway overpasses.
The results of the LA County homeless count are expected to be released in late spring or early summer.
