Mayoral politicking, LAHSA’s collapse: Homelessness
The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority released its annual Homeless Count on July 24. The weeks since have been filled with pointed fingers, boastful speeches, and serious questions about the Count’s accuracy. And underneath it all are 45,000 people in crisis.
According to LAHSA’s report, homelessness in Los Angeles rose by 3.4% over the past year. Street homelessness, meaning people who are not in shelters or other facilities, rose 8%. The numbers are significant—that is 1,499 new people added to the homeless population, and 2,149 people newly classified as “unsheltered.” More people are flowing from shelters to the streets than from the streets to shelters.
Yet an investigation released Aug. 11 found that, due to an accounting error involving shelter beds that had gone uncounted, the change in homelessness was not 3.4%, but a calmer 1.9%. And the RAND Corporation, a Santa Monica-based think tank, asserts that LAHSA routinely undercounts unhoused people by a massive 30% of unhoused people. Much doubt has been cast upon an already-controversial process.
LAHSA’s Homeless Count is conducted by thousands of volunteers over one night in January. They drive around in teams of three, look out of car windows, and count how many homeless people they see. The numbers year-to-year have largely been seen as inaccurate. “This is why I would very much like to have a count done by the city,” said Mayor Karen Bass, “where we can control how it is done.”
In the early 1990s, the City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County became embroiled in a legal battle over how to distribute homeless funds. LAHSA was formed in 1993 from that lengthy lawsuit as a joint powers authority, intended to operate homeless programs in both the city and county. 2005 was the first time it conducted the Homeless Count, continuing every two years until 2015, when it became an annual occurrence.
In 21 years, the homeless population of the City of L.A. has gone from 48,103 to 45,194, a decline of just 6%. L.A. County has seen a decline of 11%. In fiscal year 2025-26, LAHSA had a budget of $829 million, with $379.1 million coming from the County and $290.3 million coming from the City.
When it comes to LAHSA, many are concerned about inefficiency and a lack of financial transparency. A 2025 audit ordered by federal judge David O. Carter found that LAHSA did not keep adequate track of spending, meaning it was unable to determine whether programs worked properly or even happened at all. On June 11, the Trump Administration accused LAHSA of “fraud and corruption” and filed to have the agency suspended from managing federal funds. Carter himself blocked the suspension on Aug. 13.
Citing these concerns, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted in April 2025 to stop funding LAHSA beginning July 1. The County established its own homelessness agency, the Department of Homeless Services and Housing, and redirected some $300 million from LAHSA to the new Department. It is estimated that 400 LAHSA employees will be laid off due to the loss of funding. L.A. City Council members were single-minded in their efforts last year to prevent the cuts, stating that unity was more important than division. It was to no avail.
Municipal politics have, naturally, worked their way into the conversation. According to LAHSA’s count, street homeless fell 48.6% in mayoral candidate Nithya Raman’s city council district. Raman held this figure up as an indicator that her strategy of “aggressive intervention” is working better than the efforts of incumbent candidate Karen Bass. Bass dismissed these claims, stating that the progress in Raman’s district was instead due to Bass’ “Inside Safe” initiative, passed in 2022. Raman is currently the chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee but is likely to soon be removed from the position by City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, a close ally of Bass who has worked with Bass for over 30 years. When asked about the cause of the city-wide increase in homelessness, Bass pointed her finger at the Trump Administration, saying the cutting of federal housing assistance was the root cause rather than local policies.
At the heart of the crisis sit 45,000 unhoused people, including 15,000 women and 6,000 youth under the age of 24, desperate for assistance. It’s a problem whose roots extend deep into the foundations of our society, and whatever the highly complex solution may be, it will certainly take a lot of effort. One thing is clear, however: what we’ve been doing the past couple decades is not working.
Category: News
