Latest news with #LAHSA
CBS News
4 days ago
- Politics
- CBS News
LA homeless services CEO to officially step down on Friday
The chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority will officially step down on Friday after submitting her resignation in April. The resignation of Va Lecia Adams Kellum came days after the L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted to strip LAHSA of more than $300 million and create a new county department of homelessness. In a letter to the LAHSA Commission, Adams Kellum wrote it was the "right time" for her to step down after serving as head of the department since March 2023. "I am incredibly proud of LAHSA's talented and dedicated staff and deeply grateful for their tireless work. I thank them and the Commission for the opportunity to serve as CEO and for our partnership in reducing homelessness in our region," Adams Kellum wrote in her resignation letter. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass credited Adams Kellum as the architect of Inside Safe, a program intended to address street encampments and bring people into temporary housing. Under her leadership, the annual point-in-time homeless count showed there was a 4% decrease in homeless people across the county, while in the city of Los Angeles, there was a 3.4% drop. The 2025 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count showed that unsheltered homelessness in the county declined by 9.5% in 2025 compared to the prior year, and it has dropped by 14% over the last two years. While the count showed a decline in homeless numbers, the board of supervisors felt more could be done. Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said the new Department of Homeless Services and Housing is expected to "streamline services, break through bureaucracy, and deliver results across all 88 cities and unincorporated communities." The LAHSA agency had come under fire when a recent federal court review faulted it for losing track of billions in taxpayer funds while failing to address the region's homelessness crisis. An audit revealed that LAHSA could not account for tens of millions of dollars. The board of supervisors voted in April to essentially defund the joint city-county LAHSA and instead form its own department. In early July, Sarah Mahin was appointed as director of the new Department of Homeless Services and Housing. She served as the Director of Policy and Systems at LAHSA and coordinated services across a range of organizations and multiple county and city departments.
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Homelessness in Los Angeles drops for 2nd straight year
For the second consecutive year, homelessness decreased in the Los Angeles area, the 2025 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count found. 'Deep collaboration, focused emergency response, and innovative programming caused homelessness to decline by 4.0% in LA County and 3.4% in the City of LA,' the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority said Monday. The count, conducted Feb. 18-20, found more than 72,000 homeless people in the county and almost 44,000 in the city, down from 2023's highs of 75,518 and 46,260, respectively. 'It's official: The annual homeless count in Los Angeles shows a consecutive year decrease for the first time. Ever,' L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said on social media. 'On day one, I declared a state of emergency to reject the old way of doing things. Now, we've turned the page. We will not stop working urgently to save lives.' This year's reductions of 4% and 3.4% for county and city, respectively, are significantly larger than last year's reductions of 0.3% and 2.2%. 'When I first came to LAHSA, I said we'd reduce unsheltered homelessness in three years,' said LAHSA CEO Va Lecia Adams Kellum. 'We did it in one and cemented it in two. By bringing innovative solutions, system change, and working arm in arm with our partners over the last two years, LAHSA has helped move people inside with the urgency this humanitarian crisis demands.' Kellum, who is transitioning out of her LAHSA role, added that 'we can also see clearly that our work isn't done' in an apparent message to local leaders, her colleagues and eventual successor. 'It's crucial we keep moving forward, together, to sustain our reductions in unsheltered homelessness,' she said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Bloomberg
14-07-2025
- Bloomberg
LA Homelessness Drops for Second Year
By and Isabela Fleischmann Save Los Angeles County's homeless population fell for a second straight year, suggesting recent state and local policies are beginning to show results in a region that has been beset by homelessness for decades. The number of unhoused people in the county fell 4% from 2024, with an estimated 72,308 people living on the street or in temporary shelter, according to a Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) report released Monday.
CBS News
14-07-2025
- General
- CBS News
Los Angeles' 2025 homelessness count shows decrease for second consecutive year
The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority released findings from its 2025 count, reporting a 4% decrease in people experiencing homelessness across the county. This is the second year the number of unhoused people has dropped in the region. The number of people living on the streets in the county decreased by 10%, according to the 2025 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, and it has dropped 14% over the last two years. This year's count took place from February 18 to 20, one month later than normal, as it was delayed due to the wildfires. Over three nights in February, hundreds of volunteers went out into the streets of L.A. for the count, which is required for federal funding. While countywide there was a 4% decrease in unhoused people, the city of Los Angeles reported a 3.4% drop. LAHSA has credited encampment resolution efforts, such as L.A. Mayor Karen Bass' Inside Safe program and the county's Pathway Home for the decline in homelessness, as well as other policies and programs in place. "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," Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement. According to the 2025 Homeless Count, data continued to show a disproportionate number of Black people experiencing homelessness, while Latinos remain the largest ethnic group experiencing homelessness in the region. In 2019, homelessness in the county stood at 58,936 people, with the city of Los Angeles accounting for a majority of that figure, with 35,550 people. In the following years, homelessness grew across the L.A. region as a result of several factors, such as a lack of affordable housing and the coronavirus pandemic, among other issues. The crisis reached its highest point in 2023 when LAHSA recorded 75,518 homeless people in the county, with 46,260 of them in the city. In 2024, the annual homeless count showed the first slight decline in homelessness, with 75,312 homeless people in the county, 45,252 of them in the city of Los Angeles. In 2025, those figures dropped to 72,308 homeless people in the county, with about 43,669 of them in the city. In April, the LA County Board of Supervisors voted to defund he joint city-county LA County Homeless Services Authority and instead form its own department. The newly formed Los Angeles County Department for Homeless Services and Housing is expected to consolidate and streamline services while also adding greater accountability. LAHSA was faulted in a federal court review for losing track of billions in taxpayer funds while failing to address the region's homelessness crisis.
Yahoo
14-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
The number of people living on the streets dropped nearly 10% countywide this year
The number of homeless people across L.A. County declined 4% in 2025, marking the second consecutive drop after years of steady increases, with a 10% decrease of people living in the streets, according to the annual count released Monday. The decline, based on a snapshot taken in February, follows billions in taxpayer funds spent to solve homelessness in the county, and comes with increasing scrutiny of how the money is being spent. Officials with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which conducts the count, said the declines show the investment is working, particularly in reducing the population of unsheltered homeless individuals — that is people living on the streets rather than in temporary housing. In the past two years, the city and county have increasingly focused on clearing encampments and providing an offer of a shelter bed or a room in a hotel or motel. "Reducing homelessness is now a trend in LA City and county," said Paul Rubenstein, LAHSA's deputy chief external relations officer. "Our leaders came together to bring people inside and their efforts are paying off." The 2025 numbers represent the first time, since its inception in 2005, that the point in time homelessness count has shown declines in overall homelessness two years in a row, Mayor Karen Bass said. "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," she said. "These aren't just data points — they represent thousands of human beings who are now inside, and neighborhoods that are beginning to heal." How strong a trend depends on how you look at it. Last year, overall homelessness declined slightly in both the city and county, but the drops were too small to be statistically significant. Unsheltered homeless, however, did meaningfully decline in 2024. This year, the drops in both categories were outside the margin of error. Read more: The real story of how L.A. became the epicenter of America's homeless crisis In all, there were an estimated 72,308 people living in shelters or on the streets in the county in February, a 4% reduction from the 2024 count. In the city of L.A., homelessness fell 3.4% to 43,699. The unsheltered population saw larger declines. In February, there were an estimated 47,413 people living on the streets in the county and 26,972 in the city, annual declines of 9.5% and 7.9%, respectfully. Over the last two years, the unsheltered population in the county has dropped 14%, and 17.5% in the city. Rubenstein said those numbers have fallen in large part because of encampment resolution efforts. Those include Mayor Bass' Inside Safe initiative and the county's Pathway Home, both which focus on quickly moving people off the streets and into interim — and sometimes permanent — housing. Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nithya Raman, who chairs the housing and homelessness committee, said she was "proud" to see the significant decrease in unsheltered homelessness in the city. '[When you're unsheltered], you're the victim of assault, crime, sexual assault. Women are extraordinarily unsafe,' she said. "Unsheltered homelessness is what housed people see. That's what feels challenging for the city." As more people move into shelter beds, hotels and motels on what's supposed to be a temporary basis, the number of people who are sheltered, but without a permanent home grew. In 2025, the sheltered homeless population was up 8.5% in the county and 4.7% in the city, according to the count. Historically, about 25% of the homeless population is sheltered, but that number rose to about 38% in the city and 34% in the county in February. LAHSA, which overseas the region's homeless service system, said it is making progress on getting people into permanent housing. Last year, agency data showed 11,146 people moved from interim housing into a permanent home, 23.5% more than in 2023. The annual homeless count was conducted from February 18 to Feb. 20. Volunteers spread out across the county and counted the number of people they see sleeping out in the open. They also tallied the number of tents, makeshift shelters and vehicles where people are likely living. Researchers at USC then use a separate demographic survey to estimate how many people, on average, are living in each of those dwellings. The numbers released Monday aren't the only evidence homelessness has declined, at least in some places. Earlier this month, researchers at RAND released findings of a more intensive survey that found unsheltered homelessness declined in Hollywood and Venice last year, while rising in Skid Row, contributing to a 15% drop when the three neighborhoods were combined. The two reports come at a critical time for Los Angeles' homeless service delivery system, which for decades has been overseen by LAHSA. In the last year, two audits found LAHSA lacked sufficient oversight of its contracts and programs, leaving them vulnerable to waste and fraud. Following those reports, the County Board of Supervisors voted in April to move hundreds of millions of county dollars out of LAHSA and put it into a new agency that will launch next year. L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said the decrease in overall homelessness in the county is "progress," but that the decline is not fast enough. "That's why Los Angeles County is launching a new, dedicated department — one that is coordinated, accountable, and designed to meet the urgency of this moment," she said. "It will streamline services, break through bureaucracy, and deliver results across all 88 cities and unincorporated communities." In a presentation to reporters last week, LAHSA said it has worked to improve efficiency in the last two years, as well as increase coordination with local officials, which it said helped contribute to lower levels of homelessness. Los Angeles City Councilman Bob Blumenfield, however, said he takes "any data LAHSA makes public with a grain of salt" and said given budget problems across all levels of government "we need to keep exploring creative ideas and build different types of housing because the ratio of funds spent to progress is not sustainable." Indeed, moving people off the streets could soon get tougher. The Trump Administration wants to cut funding for the federal rental subsidy known as Section 8. While the state and county have already cut some funding for homeless services amid budget constraints, including some funds LAHSA has used to move people out of shelters and into apartments. Rubenstein said that reduction in particular means it will be hard to "maintain this pace" of moving people into permanent housing and why its so important to "commit to the creation of new permanent housing" locally through entities like the new L.A. County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency. Times reporter Doug Smith contributed to this report. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
