Officials for the city of Los Angeles have called out and are challenging the accuracy of the most recently reported counts of homeless people currently living in the area of Los Angeles County, which reported a total of zero homeless people living in the area of Venice Beach, sometimes more commonly labeled as the “ground zero” of homelessness.
A pair of councilmen for the city, whose districts went through an increase in the overall homeless populations according to the count, stepped forward to suggest that the data could end up being flawed.
As of the first part of this month, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority made public the official results of its homeless count, which was carried out in February.
The count reported that there were well over 69,000 homeless people living in Los Angeles County, an uptick of roughly 4.1% from where it sat in 2020. While the city of Los Angeles proper sported a homeless population of 42,000, a jump of 1.7% from 2020.
However, the count seemed to sport quite a few odd irregularities, one of which was the dramatic drop from a counted 509 homeless people to zero in the area of Venice Beach, which is very well known for its homeless problem.
“During the Count, we received several reports of user and technological errors resulting from a lack of training and poor internet connectivity,” expressed the LAHSA’s communications director, Ahmad Chapman.
“Despite these errors, we are confident in the accuracy of this year’s homeless Count because LAHSA and its partners took several steps to account for what was happening in the field,” stated Chapman.
Despite the claims, the agency did not take any effort to directly speak to the concerning count of zero homeless people throughout the northwest section of Venice.
Due to this, just this last week Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez brought forward a couple of motions calling for fullscale audits of both the counts for 2022 and the previous year’s counts as well as an evaluation looking into whether or not an outside party needs to take over these counts in the future.
All the while, a selection of the 15 city council districts of Los Angeles saw a more pointed increase in the population of homeless than the others, highlighted the counts.
The west San Fernando Valley district, under Councilman Bob Blumenfield, experienced an over 60% jump in unsheltered homeless people since 2020, reported the count, despite the fact that over 200 homeless people in the area made the move to a shelter.
Blumenfield is one of the councilors requesting the increased scrutiny regarding the counts.
“I go out in our community for homeless outreach at least once a month, and my staff is on the streets every day,” stated Blumenfield. “The increase of people who are unsheltered per the LAHSA Count does not reflect the reality that we see. More transparency over this process would be incredibly welcomed because we are simply not getting answers that add up.”
Blumenfield suggested via a release that the empty tents and RVs, along with many other factors, could have been a reason for the incorrect results.
“A count of RVs and tents can’t assess if the owner also has a shelter bed,” he stated. “I hope more work will be done to make sure these numbers are the best reflection of what’s happening in the West Valley.”
