LA County To Hold First Homeless Count In 2 Years

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – After being canceled last year because of the coronavirus pandemic, Los Angeles County authorities Tuesday will kick off their annual tally of the region's homeless population.

The 2022 Greater L.A. Point-in-Time Homeless Count, designed to get an accurate count of the number of unhoused people in the area, will begin Tuesday evening and run for three consecutive nights.

"When we go out, we just drive around the neighborhood looking for people who are experiencing homelessness," said Gregg Sherkin, a volunteer helping to count the county's unhoused.

The effort is headed up by the L.A. Homeless Services Authority and includes about 8,000 volunteers. The count will take place in the San Gabriel and San Fernando valleys, West L.A., Southeast L.A., the South Bay, Antelope Valley, Metro L.A. and South L.A.

The 2021 count was canceled. The 2022 count was supposed to take place in January, but was pushed back a month because of the Omicron surge.

"Homelessness is a humanitarian crisis," said Heidi Marston, executive director with the Los Angeles Homelessness Authority. "The data from this year's count will help us understand more about who our unhoused neighbors are, their needs, the interventions and programs we need to continue to build to support them."

Results of the 2022 count are expected to be made public by LAHSA over the summer.

The 2020 count, which was conducted just a few months prior to the start of the pandemic, recorded 66,433 people living on the streets of L.A. County, a staggering 12.7% increase from 2019.

Of that total, 41,290 were within the city of L.A., which marked a 14.2% increase over 2019.

The count will begin at 4 p.m. with a virtual news conference featuring L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti.

(© Copyright 2022 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)