Homelessness in Los Angeles

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By Skyler Moore
June 24, 2024

The city of Los Angeles is a large geographic metropolitan area, boasting the third highest population of any city in the United States with nearly 4 million people. A lack of housing availability, housing insecurity and homelessness are pervasive issues affecting some of the most vulnerable residents in the city. Creative methods to prevent and reduce homelessness and housing related issues are needed to address the multitude of ways the lack of housing availability, housing insecurity and homelessness create barriers for individuals seeking to secure their basic need. Homelessness and housing-related issues are very complex, multi-pronged issues. For example, rental assistance, other subsidy programs, affordable housing and supplemental income programs are common methods utilized to prevent homelessness for those who are at-risk. Additionally, there are homeless programs where intervention and other resources are utilized to house persons experiencing homelessness, and the resources are broad, versatile and vast. More new, efficient and innovative techniques are needed to accurately address these issues.

Despite the Karen Bass Administration housing more than 14,000 persons experiencing homelessness in her first six months in office, homelessness continued to rise rapidly, indicating a need for better, more efficient and effective prevention and intervention methods.

The 2023 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count results indicated a 10 percent increase in homelessness in the city of Los Angeles from an estimated 41,980 people to an estimated 46,260 people. This suggests approximately one percent of the total population of the people living in the city of Los Angeles are experiencing some form of homelessness on any given night. The lack of progress in reducing this wicked problem has resulted in the Los Angeles City voting to create a department dedicated to minimizing barriers associated with housing and homelessness. On April 30, 2024, the Los Angeles City Council in a 13-0 vote, voted to unanimously approved the creation of a Department of Homelessness. The Department of Homelessness is being created in an effort to eliminate organizational silos, improve service coordination and increase transparency among the homeless services programs in the City of Los Angeles. The creation of this new department is also expected to bring continuity among homeless services, which are currently dispersed in a bevy of ways among several different providers. The Department of Homelessness will centralize homeless services through creating and monitoring programs, decreasing duplicative programs and services, data reporting, reporting on funding and expenditures, therefore, consolidating the many different resources and services through one primary entity. Departmental personnel would report to City of Los Angeles Mayor, Karen Bass and the Los Angeles City Council.

Although the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority is currently the lead agency on homelessness for the County of Los Angeles and the City of Los Angeles, a more efficient and effective approach is desired by the Los Angeles City Council for greater accountability and transparency as it relates to programs, services and data reporting related to housing and homelessness.

Monica Rodriguez, Los Angeles City Councilwoman in the city’s 7th District expressed concerns regarding the various reporting methodologies and standards each homelessness and housing service provider uses, which exacerbates the difficulty a decentralized system of homelessness and housing service providers presents.

An article from CBSNews.com captured Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez’s data reporting concerns as she stated, “Within this system, determined efforts to evaluate city-funded homelessness programs often run aground, as the providers of services produce irregular and imprecise reporting on contractually-obligated metrics and outcome.”

The City of Los Angeles is currently dedicating more than $1 billion to address the housing and homelessness crisis in the city, which has drawn concerns from parties invested in reducing the city’s housing and homelessness crisis.

Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez provided further clarification for her reasoning on advocating for the creation of this new department. She shared additional thoughts on the issues with the homeless services system in a CBSNews.com article in which she stated, “A Department of Homelessness can help verify what each level of government is doing to solve the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time; I cannot say with certainty that we have an efficient and effective operation free of redundancies.”

This increased attention and sense of urgency from the Los Angeles City Council and City of Los Angeles Mayor gives hope to the progress that can be made with a centralized agency at the helm. If the current trend of increases in homelessness continues, this new department will have plenty of opportunities to make a significant impact in the future.

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Author: Dr. Skyler Moore can be reached at [email protected].

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