Unlike SJ, LA homelessness is actually decreasing--and LA's getting homeless into shelters faster, too
While SJ and Santa Clara county officials stretch credulity in efforts to explain away increases in area homelessness counts, our Southland neighbors are actually delivering real improvement. Overall # of homelessness is down in LA and % in shelters is improving more quickly than SJ, also. NBC4's Ted Chen reports.
Homelessness in Los Angeles has declined for the second year in a row, according to the city and county’s 2025 Homeless Count.
Los Angeles County experienced a 4% decrease in unhoused people, and a 3.4% drop in the city of Los Angeles, according to Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority data.
{Editor's note: Between 2023 and 2025, SJ actually experienced an *increase* in overall homelessness of 3%, from 6340 to 6503.}
“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,” LA Mayor Karen Bass said in a Monday news release.
Last year, the agency recorded 75,312 homeless people in the county with 45,252 of them in the city. According to this year’s count, those figures further dropped to 72,308 homeless people in the county, with about 43,669 of them in the city.
Unsheltered homelessness in the county declined by 9.5% in 2025 compared to 2024, according to the LAHSA, dropping by 14% over the last two years.
In the city, unsheltered homelessness declined by 7.9% in 2025. It has dropped by 17.5% over the last two years.
{Editor's note: LA's 17.5% drop in unsheltered homelessness also compares favorably to SJ, which experienced an 11% drop in unsheltered homelessness between 2023 and 2025, from 4411 to 3959.
Additionally, there has been about an 8.5% increase of unhoused individuals entering interim housing, such as shelters and other forms of temporary housing.
This year’s data also shows a 13.5% decline in makeshift shelters, including tents, RVs, cars and vans. Permanent housing placements are also at an all-time high.
The city 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.
“These results aren’t just data points — they represent thousands of human beings who are now inside, and neighborhoods that are beginning to heal,” Bass said.
A month later, LAHSA officials determined that unsheltered homelessness was expected to decrease by 5 to 10%, citing preliminary raw data.
“When I first came to LAHSA, I publicly stated that we wanted to reduce unsheltered homelessness within three years. We've done it in two,” outgoing CEO Va Lecia Adams Kellum said in a March statement.
The agency has credited encampment resolution efforts such as Mayor Karen Bass' Inside Safe program and the county's Pathway Home for the decline in homelessness.
The agency also touted an increase in permanent housing placements, a record high of 27,994 in 2024, which has contributed to the positive results.
Read the whole thing here.
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