2026 Greater LA Homeless Count begins three-night push

LOS ANGELES - The annual Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count has officially commenced, with hundreds of volunteers mobilizing to document the region's unhoused population. 

This three-night effort, managed by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), utilizes a point-in-time snapshot to assess local needs and direct future resources across most of Los Angeles County.

What we know:

The Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count will start on Tuesday evening in the San Fernando Valley and metro Los Angeles area. 

This annual operation provides a point-in-time snapshot of homelessness for the LA Continuum of Care, excluding the cities of Long Beach, Pasadena, and Glendale, which conduct their own independent counts.

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Volunteers will use an app-based data collection process and improved maps to conduct the tally. 

To ensure the safety of participants, the county's Department of Health Services and the Emergency Centralized Response Center are providing staff to cover "special consideration" areas such as basins, creeks, and deserts that are difficult or dangerous for community volunteers to reach.

Timeline:

The operation is structured as a three-night regional rollout:

• Tuesday: Counting begins in the San Fernando Valley and metro Los Angeles.
• Wednesday: Volunteers will fan out across the San Gabriel Valley and East Los Angeles.
• Thursday: The count concludes in the Antelope Valley, West Los Angeles, South Los Angeles, and the South Bay/Harbor region.
• Late spring or early summer: LAHSA is expected to release the final results.

Big picture view:

Ahead of this year's count, LAHSA enacted several improvements to ensure a more efficient and accurate operation. 

These include simplified training materials for volunteers, increased technical support at deployment sites, and an overhaul of the housing inventory and youth counts. 

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The youth count, specifically focusing on those aged 10 to 19, will now be conducted over nine additional days to generate larger data samples and improve response rates.

What's next:

Following the three-night deployment of volunteers, the focus will shift to data validation and review. The housing inventory count began earlier this year to optimize this process. 

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Once the data from the general census, youth count, and sheltered inventory are compiled and analyzed, the findings will be shared with the public later this year to inform regional housing and homelessness policy.