Dive Brief:

• Homelessness declined in Los Angeles County for the second consecutive year, falling 4% to 72,308 unhoused people after a 0.27% drop last year, according to the 2025 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count. Unsheltered homelessness decreased 9.5% after a 5.1% decline last year.
• Permanent housing placements reached a record high of 27,994 in Los Angeles County in 2024, a 2.5% increase compared with the year before. 
• The report comes as the county prepares to consolidate its efforts to curb homelessness through a newly established Department of Homeless Services and Housing, shifting away from a 32-year partnership with the City of Los Angeles. 

Dive Insight: 

With a quarter of the country’s homeless population, California is often considered the epicenter of the nation’s homelessness crisis.

But while the U.S. reported record highs in homelessness last year, California’s largest county recorded declines. This year’s numbers continue to show improvement for the county, as local “encampment resolution” programs such as Inside Safe and Pathway Home worked to get more people off the streets and into shelters or permanent housing, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

“This progress reflects a focused emergency response, innovative housing programs and strong coordination among service providers and local jurisdictions,” Los Angeles County Chair Pro Tem and First District Supervisor Hilda Solis said in a press release.

The City of Los Angeles also saw reductions in homelessness for a second year in a row, falling 3.4% to 43,699, according to the LAHSA report. Unsheltered homeless populations in the city fell 7.9%.

In April, the LA County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to create the Department of Homeless Services and Housing, which will launch in January, 2026. By next summer, $300 million, generated by a half-cent sales tax that went into effect April 1, will be moved out of LAHSA and transferred to the county’s new department, CBS News reported.

“The goal of this new department is increased accountability, improved service delivery for people experiencing homelessness and reducing the burden on the providers who serve them every day,” the county said in a statement. 

The department is modeled after the county’s Department of Health Services’  Housing for Health program, which has had success in helping people with physical and behavioral conditions find interim and permanent housing, LAist reported.

City officials decried the shift away from LAHSA, which was founded in 1993 to combine city and county efforts to reduce homelessness.

“This action would create a monumental disruption in the progress we are making and runs the serious risk of worsening our homelessness crisis, not ending it,” LA Mayor Karen Bass and City Council Member Nithya Raman wrote in a letter to supervisors in April.

The city accounts for 60% of the county’s homeless population, according to Bass and Raman. 

The county has the largest financial stake in LAHSA, at 40%, with the city funding 35% of the budget. The remainder comes from the state, federal government and private donors.  LAHSA has been criticized for falling short of outreach goals, and its leadership was scrutinized for a conflict of interest earlier this year.

Bass also pushed back against a 2025-2026 state budget proposal that snubbed funding for the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention program for localities — another potential funding shakeup for the city during a year when federal housing assistance is also in jeopardy. 

“We do not need to see an increase of homelessness now when things are on a very good trajectory,” Bass said at a June 5 press conference to advocate for the prevention program.