LA homelessness declines for second year in a row, 2025 count shows

LA homelessness declines for second year in a row

The headcount for homelessness in Los Angeles has dropped for the second year in a row.

LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority released the results of the 2025 Annual Homeless Count, showing that homelessness declined for the second consecutive year.

By the numbers:

The annual point-in-time homeless count showed there was a 4% decrease in homelessness across the county, and a 3.4% drop in the city of Los Angeles.

Data from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) showed that unsheltered homelessness in the county declined by 9.5% in 2025 compared to the prior year, and 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 LA, unsheltered homelessness declined by 7.9% in 2025, and dropped by 17.5% over the last two years. LAHSA reported a 4.7% increase in unhoused individuals entering temporary housing in the city.

"Homelessness has gone down two years in a row because we chose to act with urgency and reject the broken status quo of leaving people on the street until housing was built. These results aren’t just data points—they represent thousands of human beings who are now inside, and neighborhoods that are beginning to heal," said Mayor Bass. 

"This Point in Time Count makes one thing clear: change is possible when we refuse to accept encampments as normal and refuse to leave people behind."

This year’s Point in Time Count results show:

• Homelessness reported to have declined for two years in a row in L.A. for the first time.
• Street homelessness reduced by 17.5% since Mayor Bass took office in December of 2022. This is the largest decrease over two years since the Point in Time Count began in 2005.
• The number of makeshift shelters, tents, cars, vans and RVs declined for a second time in a row, down 13.5%.
• Permanent housing placements in Los Angeles City are at an all-time high.

LAHSA noted that the region still needs more than 485,000 affordable housing units to meet the needs in the region.

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 deadly LA County wildfires.

LA County creates new homeless agency

Under the plan approved Tuesday on a 4-0 vote, with Supervisor Holly Mitchell abstaining, the new county agency is expected to be in place by Jan. 1, with all funding pulled from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority and transferred to the new county department by July 1, 2026.

Past homeless counts 

Dig deeper:

In 2019, homelessness in the county 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 LA region as a result of several factors, such as a lack of affordable housing and the COVID-19 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.

LA's efforts to curb homelessness investigated

A federal hearing is underway to determine whether Los Angeles breached its agreement to create enough shelter beds for the homeless.

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 continues to show a disproportionate number of Black people experiencing homelessness, while Latinos remain the largest ethnic group experiencing homelessness in the region.