There were fewer visible tents around MacArthur Park this year, but that did not mean fewer people were living on the streets.
That’s according to the latest data from the annual Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s point-in-time county, which found overall increases in multiple neighborhoods. The annual count was conducted in January and the results were officially released on Friday.
In the Westlake North Neighborhood Council area, which includes much of the area surrounding MacArthur Park, the number of tents counted during Los Angeles’ annual homeless count dropped from 41 to 10 over the past year.
The total number of dwellings — including tents, makeshift shelters and vehicles — also fell from 147 to 68.
But elsewhere nearby, people living on the street continued to rise. The annual count found the number of people living unsheltered in the Westlake South Neighborhood Council area increased from 351 to 598, while the MacArthur Park Neighborhood Council area nearly doubled from 174 to 330.
Across Los Angeles, the number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness increased 7.9%, while the overall unsheltered population rose 3.4%, reversing two consecutive years of declines.
Victor Narro, project director of the UCLA Labor Center in Westlake, said encampment sweeps around MacArthur Park have made tents less visible but may have displaced people to other parts of the neighborhood.
“The city took proactive steps to clear the encampments, but the issue becomes that people become more vulnerable, especially when it is hot and when it rains,” Narro said.
He has noticed fewer encampments and fewer unhoused people in the park itself, but believes many have moved to nearby side streets.
“People start looking for side streets where there might be a higher tolerance level for encampments,” he said. “It may be through word of mouth, but now they know they cannot set up any more tents in the immediate MacArthur Park area.”
The data also shows an increase in the number of people living without shelter in multiple neighborhoods, including Koreatown and Westlake, the neighborhood surrounding MacArthur Park.
But outreach workers who routinely go out into the field to provide resources to the unhoused year-round still feel that the data may not capture the full picture.
Sherin Varghese, an organizer with Ktown for All, has noticed more people sleeping outside without tents or other shelter, making them harder to count during a single-night survey.
“We’ve heard reports from people that they are finding places to sleep at night where they can’t be found or moving around during the day because people have lost the stability of their tent or space,” she said.
Ktown for All operates as a homeless outreach and advocacy organization and volunteers with the organization have seen longer lines at food banks and those overburdened community services paint a fuller picture than the annual count can relay alone, Varghese said.
Reductions in housing assistance and continued encampment sweeps without enough permanent housing have left many people moving from block to block rather than exiting homelessness, she said.
“It takes looking at our unhoused neighbors as individuals with different needs,” she said, “but a lot of the conversation is, ‘well we’re just going to go to an encampment and put everyone in a room.’ We’re not looking at someone who might have PTSD and not do well in isolation, or someone who is monolingual Korean and does not understand what the expectations of them are.”
In the Wilshire Center-Koreatown Neighborhood Council area, unsheltered homelessness rose from 131 to 162. Pico Union was the exception, where the number of people counted sleeping on the street fell from 134 to 80.
(Angelo Claure/The LA Local)
The count also showed different trends in temporary shelter use.
In Westlake South, the number of people staying in temporary shelters fell from 440 to 350. The sheltered population also declined in the MacArthur Park Neighborhood Council area, dropping from 341 to 188. Meanwhile, the number of sheltered people increased in Pico Union, from 68 to 126, and in the Wilshire Center-Koreatown Neighborhood Council area, from 71 to 131.
For outreach workers and community organizations serving these neighborhoods, the numbers reflect what they have been seeing on the streets over the last year.
Nicholas Chapman, outreach coordinator for Teen Challenge Los Angeles believes the solutions provided by the city don’t address the real issue facing the unhoused community. He volunteers bringing supplies to the unhoused community in MacArthur Park.
“A lot of people tend to think putting them in a house or giving them somewhere safe to stay is resolving the problem, but it’s really just a band-aid to the issue,” said Chapman.
Mental health and drug addiction are the most important issues he sees among the people his organization helps in MacArthur Park. He’s seen housing projects offered to people on the street without consideration or support to combat their drug addiction. Even with the lower number of unhoused people at MacArthur Park due to increased policing, Chapman believes the issue is only getting worse.
Serena Oberstein, executive director at the Pico Union Project believes a full overhaul of LA City infrastructure is needed.
“We need to ensure that people don’t fall deeper through the social fabric of society, making sure that they don’t have to choose between paying the rent and paying for food to feed their families,” said Oberstein.
She says more proactivity must be seen by the city to produce a coordinated effort in addressing the issues with the unhoused community. Pico Union Project provides the community with a weekly free food bank as well as mobile health care for people in need of health resources.
“We should be thinking about how we look at what’s happening as a state of emergency and having an all hands on deck approach,” she said.
Tam Phan of No Harm KTLA, a volunteer-led group that conducts twice-monthly neighborhood cleanups in the neighborhood, said the increase found in this year’s report reflects what volunteers see every day in Koreatown.
“I don’t think it’s surprising that it went up, walking around day to day you see more unhoused individuals and encampments. The data does back it up,” Phan said.
Phan said the city needs to invest in permanent housing, healthcare and other public services instead of relying on temporary solutions.
“Housing is one basic need, but it’s also food and healthcare,” Phan said.
