Flaw in Homeless Count:

Increase in Homeless Count Less Than First Reported

The rise in homelessness across the County and City of Los Angeles isn’t quite as dramatic as first reported this past May by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. A recalculation of the data — after eliminating a flaw in the counting system discovered by the Los Angeles Times and the LAHSA — reveals that the increase in homeless people between 2015 and 2016 is smaller than initially announced.
That was truer for Los Angeles County, where the number of homeless people increased less than one-half percent, than it was for the City of Los Angeles, where the number of homeless people grew by 5 percent.
Though the Daily Breeze has hailed the revised numbers as “slow but steady” progress toward reducing the still-expanding number of homeless people, eradicating the chief cause of Los Angeles’ growing homeless population— not enough affordable housing—may take longer. Below are visual representations of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority counts for 2015 and 2016.