Both Los Angeles City and the County continued to turn the corner on reducing the number of street homeless people, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) 2025 Annual Homeless Count, released today.
Unsheltered homelessness across LA County has dropped by 9.5% or 47,413 people, and is down 14% over the last two years. Meanwhile, the number of people in shelters rose by 8.5% or 24,895 people in 2025.
In the City of LA, unsheltered homelessness dropped by 7.9%, or 26,972 people, and has been down 17.5% since 2023. In 2025, the number of people in shelter rose by 4.7%, or 16,727 people.
“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 Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, in announcing the results.
Bass quickly made the issue of homelessness a priority and declared a state of emergency to urgently remove people from the streets on the first day of her first term in January 2023.
According to a Bass press release accompanying the annual count, her initiative Inside Safe has brought thousands of people inside and resolved more than 100 often entrenched and longstanding encampments in every council district in the city.
Additionally, Bass spearheaded needed policy changes that are preventing people from being housed, and accelerated the building of more than 30,000 units of affordable housing, advanced innovative housing solutions through LA4LA, and is keeping people from falling into homelessness in the first place through a research-proven anti-eviction program led by the Mayor’s Fund.
Bass said these system-wide changes and this year’s results are made possible in part because of the collaboration and partnership with Chair of the City Council Housing and Homelessness Committee Councilmember Nithya Raman, LAHSA CEO Dr. Va Lecia Adams Kellum, and other regional leaders.
“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. My commitment to confront this crisis head-on is stronger and more urgent than ever,” said Bass.
The University of Southern California (USC) designed and conducted the 2025 Count in accordance with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development standards. To see a presentation of the report, click here.
