Despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent to curb homelessness, the number of people without a home in Los Angeles grew last year for the fifth time in the last six years, officials announced Friday. And that was before the pandemic.
The double-digit increases reported in both the city and county reflected the status in January, when the annual count is taken, and before the novel coronavirus thrashed the region’s economy, raising the likelihood of a new wave of people losing their homes.
The count “is not that helpful because the whole landscape has changed,” said Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Executive Director Heidi Marston.
Kenny Welch, 57, builds a living structure under a 110 Freeway overpass in Los Angeles.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
“This doesn’t take into account the almost 600,000 people that, since January, and even just since May, have lost their jobs due to COVID-19,” she said.
The annual point-in-time count released Friday estimated the county’s homeless population at 66,433, up nearly 13% from the prior year, the second consecutive double-digit increase. The estimate for the city was 41,290, up almost 14% and only slightly less than last year’s increase of 16%.
Those dismal numbers highlight the continuing incapacity of the region’s expanding homeless services institutions to get their arms around interwoven crises of affordable housing, income inequality and mental health that are playing out on city and county streets.
“We hate these numbers,” Marston said. “We hate seeing the increases.”
No comments:
Post a Comment