One of the keys to unlocking federal money to address the homeless crisis in Los Angeles County plays out every year on sidewalks, alleyways and freeway underpasses — all in the hands of thousands of volunteers.
Over 5,000 volunteers fanned out across the region this week as part of the annual Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, tallying the local population of people sleeping outdoors, in vehicles and in makeshift shelters. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, requires the annual count to help determine several factors, including how much federal funding flows to the county.
But outreach workers who regularly meet with unhoused people say it fails to capture the reality on the ground.
“It’s this massive waste of money and resources and volunteer power that’s ineffective, just to unlock federal money that isn’t enough anyway,” said Sherin Varghese, with the advocacy group Ktown for All. “There are a thousand ways to do it better and more cheaply.”
‘Always an undercount’
The county has proposed allocating $2.3 million for the count in the next fiscal year. The annual point-in-time count is a snapshot of the current situation on the ground, spread across three nights in late January.
The overnight count often misses rapid changes in the unsheltered population, especially during periods of funding instability, Varghese said, who has volunteered as a surveyor and coordinator with the annual count in previous years.
She and other Ktown for All volunteers often meet with unhoused people in Koreatown, one of the densest neighborhoods in the city.
“We have seen over the past few months a massive spike in what we see week to week,” Varghese said. “In the past six weeks or so, we’ve seen a massive increase of folks on our regular Saturday outreach.”
Varghese said it’s unclear what’s driving the increase, but pointed to a combination of expiring subsidies as well as federal, state and local funding being pulled back.
The annual count has become increasingly consequential in LA County, which has the largest unhoused population in the nation. Last year’s count estimated 72,308 people experiencing homelessness countywide, down roughly 4%. In fiscal year 2024, HUD awarded the Los Angeles Continuum of Care more than $220 million, but multiple pandemic era emergency grants are set to expire. The data this year will help determine how much of an impact those federal cuts will have on the local level.
Officials said the 2026 count comes during a period of major upheaval in the region’s homelessness response system, including deep funding shortfalls and structural changes to how services are administered.
Varghese believes the methodology almost guarantees an undercount.
“The PIT count is done in January, typically the coldest time of year, which is probably the least accurate time of year to do it,” Varghese said. “It’s also done at night, which is when people are more vulnerable and typically less visible than they are during the day.”
Cold or rainy conditions can push people indoors temporarily, she said — couch surfing, doubling up, or pooling money for motel rooms — making them invisible to volunteers.
“It is always an undercount. That’s backed up by studies they’ve done,” Varghese said, pointing to a number of studies done on it, including a RAND Corporation analysis released in October that found that more than 30% of the unhoused population went uncounted last year in Skid Row, Hollywood and Venice.
An LAist investigation last year also found that inconsistent data-processing practices at the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which oversees the count, led to volunteer app observations being excluded at higher rates, particularly within the city of LA.
Others on the ground echo the same concerns.
“Reports are coming out that homelessness has gone down, but I’m not so sure it has,” said Pia Cadanela, with No Harm Ktown LA, a volunteer group that does trash pickups in the neighborhood twice a month. “Come summer, it’s the same amount of homeless people that we see. When it’s warmer weather, we see them more.”
‘Homelessness doesn’t stay flat’
Officials say the count remains a critical tool, even as they acknowledge its limits.
“The Los Angeles homeless count is one of many tools that we can use for measuring progress and for addressing our humanitarian crisis,” said City Councilmember Nithya Raman. “An accurate count is required by the federal government in order to get resources, and it allows us to target services and progress.”
Raman noted that Measure A, the voter-approved countywide sales tax for homelessness services and housing, will add additional ways to measure progress. The sales tax is expected to generate about $1 billion annually.
Gita O’Neill, interim CEO of LAHSA, defended the need for the count amid mounting funding setbacks on the state, federal and local levels.
She detailed the expiration of emergency pandemic era housing grants, a possible $300 million county funding gap and other uncertainties.
“Homelessness doesn’t stay flat — it may rise,” O’Neill said during a press briefing ahead of the annual count. “As the remaining homeless count calculations are finalized, we face the very real possibility that the next numbers will show an increase, not because solutions failed, but because the resources did.”
Martin Holguin, treasurer of LAHSA’s Lived Experience Advisory Board and someone who previously experienced homelessness, said the count plays an important role beyond data by getting volunteers involved.
“There’s no better way to understand what it’s like to be out there and to be out,” Holguin said.
Still, the value of the count still makes some volunteers feel like they are doing something to address the crisis.
On Tuesday, the first night of the count, a brief training session took place at the Inner City Law Center just before volunteers were deployed around 8 p.m.
Some volunteers were still trying to get through the roughly 13-minute training video on how to use the mobile app and what to look out for as they headed out the door.
Out in the field, some volunteers appeared uncertain as they tried their best to navigate their assigned streets, driving slowly with their windows rolled down and peering into pitch-black sidewalks and alleyways late in the evening.
Jamie Hunt, a third-year law student at Southwestern Law School who joined the count in Pico Union, said being physically present is important.
“It seems like this is better than nothing,” Hunt said. “It seems like having at least some sort of a physical count is good.”
Hunt is aware of discrepancies in past years but felt the effort was still worthwhile.
“I care deeply about homelessness and know how important it is for there to be an accurate count,” she said. “I like that the community is coming together to do this good thing.”
