Dozens of RVs being removed from LA county after years of resident complaints — but will this approach work?
In 2024, Los Angeles County's homeless population reached about 75,000, according to the city's Homeless Services Authority. Now, efforts are underway to remove dozens of RVs in the East Gardena-West Rancho Dominguez area of LA County.
For years, residents have been complaining about an influx of trailers that has created overcrowding in the area, claiming there's also been an increase in crime.
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The Homeless Outreach Services Team (HOST), which is run by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, is leading an outreach and cleanup operation in the area, with help from several other county agencies.
The effort is part of the Pathway Home Program, which is led by the LA County Homeless Initiative. The goal is to bring people out of homelessness and help them establish safe, permanent housing while improving public safety.
"It's an amazing feeling," said Kimberly Barnette, director of the Pathway Home Program in an interview with FOX 11 LA. 'It's very rare we get to see an immediate impact on people's lives, but it takes a lot of coordination and work.'
The HOST program is a joint effort from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. These teams joined forces to help connect unhoused people with important resources like housing and healthcare in an effort to get them off the streets and into stable homes.
Meanwhile, in late 2024, LA County launched its Pathway Home RV Interim Housing Pilot Program, which is aimed at helping homeless people living in RVs. The goal is to provide RV dwellers with legal parking, a safe environment to sleep and services to transition into more permanent housing situations.
'This pilot program allows us to continue doing critical outreach while efficiently using existing county resources to provide a safe space that will include wrap-around services for mental health and substance abuse, and a plan to help get each person in an RV into permanent housing,' said Holly J. Mitchell, Supervisor for Los Angeles County in a 2024 press release.
The RV site managed by the Pathway Home Program can accommodate up to 14 RVs and 20 participants. LASD Lt. George Suarez has been working on homeless outreach for years and is happy with the results he's seen.
"It is clearly a humanitarian crisis," Suarez shared with FOX 11 LA, adding that these homeless initiatives are creating "positive momentum."
A key part of the program's success is establishing trust with the homeless community. Rigo Alejo is a community advocate who turned his life around after almost 10 years of living in an RV in a homeless encampment.
"I am an example to all these people around who I used to hang out with," he told FOX 11 LA. "If I can do it, anyone can do it."
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LA County has sunk a lot of resources into addressing its homelessness problem, but some critics wonder if the cost is worth the effort, and if the results offer a long-term solution to the problem.
LA's Inside Safe program is a similar initiative designed to provide temporary housing to homeless individuals. The program has reportedly placed 905 people in housing and 1,620 people in interim housing.
However, the program has also spent about $368 million to date. That's a cost of about $407,000 for each of the 905 people that the program placed in housing. When we combine the 905 people in housing with the 1,620 people in interim housing, the cost per person sits at roughly $146,000.
But of the 1,512 people who have exited the program, 1,356 have returned to homelessness while 70 are listed as deceased — which begs the question: how effective are these initiatives when it comes to combating homelessness?
Meanwhile, the Pathway Home Program has managed to move 1,400 individuals into temporary housing and remove 819 RVs since its inception in 2023. It has also managed to find permanent housing for 265 individuals.
LAist reported in March that over the past two years, the program had spent almost $166 million to shelter 1,200 people temporarily and 235 people permanently for a total of 1,435 people. If we divide 1,435 people by 166 million, that's a cost per person of about $116,000.
Clearly, programs like the ones above are having some type of impact on LA County's homeless community. But the question is, are they worth the money, and could the money be better spent elsewhere?
A late 2024 audit by the LA City Controller found that homeless initiatives between 2019 and 2023 were not doing enough to address the greater problem at hand.
According to the report, 'there are a woefully inadequate number of people moving from interim to permanent housing: Less than 20% of people in interim housing secured permanent housing, and more than 50% of people exiting interim housing returned to homelessness or unknown destinations.'
The audit suggested that these programs need to do a better job of creating more permanent solutions to the homeless crisis. Some of its recommendations include increasing resources so that people living in shelters could have access to services that connect them to more permanent housing, consolidating services, and doing a better job of monitoring outcomes.
Meanwhile, Everyone In — a community movement to end LA's homelessness crisis — has its own suggestions to address the problem. It recommends creating more affordable housing as a more long-term solution, as well as using a more coordinated system to provide housing and services to people in need.
The group also insists that homelessness prevention is key, and that more resources need to be allocated to prevent homelessness from the start. These include expanding housing subsidy programs and rental protections, including assistance for people at risk of eviction.
Plus, the group feels money should be spent on job training programs and child care to enable more people to earn a livable wage so they can afford housing.
It's a good thing that LA County is taking steps to tackle homelessness head on. But, unfortunately, these programs may not be making the most of the financial resources it has available to address the crisis.
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