Streets of need: Volunteers navigate neighborhoods as LA County tallies its homeless

Some bunkered in tents or slept in their cars. Others withstood the biting cold, setting up outside of always-open fast-food restaurants and pharmacies.

And on Tuesday night, Jan. 24, Los Angeles County’s massive, mostly volunteer effort to account for as many of those unsheltered folks as possible officially got underway.

The county’s annual, three-day, point-in-time homeless count began late Tuesday, with hundreds of Angelenos fanning out across the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys – including LA Mayor Karen Bass and the locally beloved actor Danny Trejo.

Pasadena, which conducts a separate city survey because it has its own health department, also began its two-day count on Tuesday. Volunteers wrapped that city’s homeless count on Wednesday morning.

The county’s tally, organized by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, will continue Wednesday night in east and west LA, and conclude on Thursday in South L.A., central L.A. and the Antelope Valley.

Long Beach and Glendale – which, like Pasadena, have their own health departments – will conduct their counts on Thursday.

Taken together, the herculean endeavors to count the number of people who lack permanent shelter throughout Los Angeles County, officials say, is among the most important annual tasks if the region is to solve the ongoing homeless crisis.

“We all have skin in the game,” Bass said while kicking off LAHSA’s count. “And that’s what tonight is, skin in the game.”

Determining the scope of homelessness – including surveying how many folks have mental health or substance-abuse issues – is crucial, factoring into how much state and federal money local agencies receive and helping officials craft aid and outreach strategies.

But the 2023 count, in many ways, has taken on even greater significance than previous years, with the possible exception of the 2022 tally, which was the first since the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent economic fallout hit.

LAHSA, for one, installed a new executive director this week, Va Lecia Adams Kellum — the agency’s fourth leader in a year. The agency also implemented a new methodology for this year’s count, after homeless advocates spent years criticizing the survey.

Los Angeles city and county, as well as Long Beach, have declared homelessness local emergencies.

Those declarations underscore the continuing sense of urgency of the humanitarian crisis in the county, despite numerous shelters having opened – or still in the works – and myriad initiatives to offer job training, mental health and substance-abuse services, and assistance with finding permanent housing, among other efforts.

LA County, in fact, saw a 4% increase in its homeless population last year compared to 2020, according to LAHSA’s data, bringing the total to 69,144. That followed a 12.7% increase from 2019 to 2020.

Long Beach’s homeless population, meanwhile, spiked 62% from 2020 to 2022. Pasadena’s homeless population was relatively stable, dipping slightly from 527 people in 2020 to 512 last year.

The results from this year’s count won’t come until this summer at the earliest.

But before LAHSA can do the number-crunching, it needs the numbers.

That survey began Tuesday night with a press conference at LA Family Housing’s headquarters, in North Hollywood, with political a-listers and scores of volunteers attending.

The press conference was partly meant to encourage more volunteers to show up.

“I think it’s important to participate in any kind of activity that’s going to help our community,” Trejo said. “People get all sentimental on Christmas and thanksgiving and we should do it all year.”

It wasn’t immediately known how many volunteers showed up for the count’s first day.

But both Bass and Trejo were among the hundreds of volunteers who hit the streets around 9 p.m., each assigned to cover different census tracts in small groups.

Among the volunteers was Gail Owens, who was homeless for three years in Sunland-Tujunga but recently received a place to live through LA Family Housing.

“It changed my life,” Owens said, adding that she’s much happier now that she has her “life together.”

“If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t have made it,” she said. “That’s why I want to give back.”

Besides good Samaritans such as Owens, many of LAHSA’s staff members also volunteered in the count.

LAHSA’s chief program officer, Molly Riseman, has participated in every single count since it started in 2005, she said – and this year was no different.

Riseman covered the census tract surrounding LA Family Housing’s headquarters, alongside LAHSA homeless outreach workers Delilah Perez and Brandon Espana.

Their combined skill set proved useful in locating the many unsheltered folks hunkered down in dark and quiet corners of the North Hollywood neighborhood.

“I do like being a part of it because this is our area where we work,” Perez said, “so for example, today I did have a feeling that there was going to be someone at the McDonald’s.

That’s because there usually are, Perez said.

Sure enough, she was right. A man wrapped in a blanket lay beside the McDonald’s stoop. With a swipe of the finger, his location was input into this year’s counting map.

Espana said he enjoys taking part in the count, because he knows it plays an important role in determining where resources are allocated.

“We work in some of Pacoima, which is (Council District 7), and there’s not a lot of resources there,” he said. “So if people are aware that there are a lot more (unhoused) people there and less resources, that will be beneficial to whoever is living outside over there.”

Over in Pasadena, meanwhile, volunteers were also tallying that city’s homeless population.

Off Lake Avenue, under a Sal state LA billboard – which reads, “Start your future here” – an unnamed person is tucked under a thin canvas, at her makeshift  homestead.

Everything the person owns was in a shopping cart.

She did not want to be interviewed.

But Terry Bourne knows her.

Bourne has lived in Pasadena since 2005 and volunteered with the homeless count twice. He recognized her, and even though she told him she’s been homeless for a year, Bourne said he knows that it’s been longer.

“I have compassion for people that can find their way,” Bourne said. “Some accept help. Some will take a portion of help and some are just conditioned to enjoy where they are.”

Outside a CVS, meanwhile, a man held out a cup asking for change. But he retreated as volunteer Mark Persico asked if he’d complete the survey. The man promptly declined – leaving Persico to simply observe and anonymously tally him.

Persico has been a resident in Pasadena for 32 years – and recognized that as a privilege.

“Like many people who’ve been here a long time, we could not afford our house if we had to buy it today,” he said. “It’s just heartbreaking.I mean, Pasadena is a city that’s got tremendous riches and, you know, poverty at the same time.”

Back in the San Fernando Valley, Riseman noted that the trendlines of the crisis aren’t static – and the annual count, she said, helps capture the population’s changes.

Last year’s data, for example, showed an increase in folks citing financial reasons as the cause for being homeless, likely because of the pandemic.

One change Riseman has noticed, she said, was the increase in people sleeping in recreational vehicles.

“RV folks are not going to give up private space to go into a congregate shelter,” Riseman said. “It has really helped us understand the need for non-congregate spaces and unique approaches for RVs.”

This is a breaking story; check back for updates.