A yearlong count of unsheltered Angelenos by the RAND Corp. found a significant decrease in the number of unhoused residents from the previous year, but those who remain may be increasingly difficult to move into housing, the nonprofit research organization announced Tuesday.
The study of unsheltered residents of Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles and of people experiencing homelessness in Hollywood and Venice during 2024 found a 15% drop from the previous year, which researchers said was likely driven by more individuals gaining access to interim and permanent housing through government programs.
RAND also reported that “rough sleeping” — living completely unsheltered without a tent, makeshift shelter or vehicle — showed little change. Rough sleeping is now the most common type in the three study areas, representing about 40% of the total population of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness.
While researchers counted a nearly 700-person decrease in the combined unsheltered populations of Hollywood and Venice, that was offset partially by a 170-person, 9% increase in Skid Row. Hollywood showed a 49% decline, and Venice posted a 22% drop, according to the study titled “Los Angeles Longitudinal Enumeration and Demographic Survey Project,” or LA LEADS.
“Our latest count found meaningful progress in reducing the number of the unhoused, as compared to the two previous years,” Louis Abramson, the study’s lead author and a RAND adjunct researcher, said in a statement.
“But our results suggest that the remaining unhoused residents may be harder to engage and bring indoors,” Abramson said. “New policies may be needed to extend 2024’s successes into a future that looks meaningfully different from the one that current strategies were designed to address.”
The RAND study is the largest count of people living unhoused in LA outside the annual point-in-time count organized by the joint city-county Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. That countywide survey is conducted mainly by teams of trained volunteers and occurs during several consecutive evenings every January.
Last year RAND’s survey staff counted unhoused people every two months in the study neighborhoods and surveyed 463 unsheltered people across the neighborhoods from July to October.
According to the study, survey participants reported staying in the same location for shorter time periods compared with past years. This finding is consistent with the removal of “shelter in place” orders and increases in sanitation and other encampment-resolution effort. Most common in Hollywood, such cleanup efforts move unsheltered people indoors but also displace them.
The overall drop in unsheltered homelessness has mainly resulted from a reduction in tents and makeshift structures, leaving “a more transient, mobile and dynamic population,” according to the study. The fraction of unhoused people surveyed in Hollywood and Venice who said they were living with literally no shelter reached record levels — rough sleepers now dominate the LA LEADS unsheltered population, comprising 42% of all people who researchers inferred to be living on the street last December.
“Because fewer unhoused people are dwelling in dense tent communities, it suggests that outreach teams will have to traverse larger areas to engage the same number of people, likely reducing their average efficiency,” Sarah B. Hunter, co-author of the study and director of the RAND Center on Housing and Homelessness, said in a statement. “As more people live totally exposed to the elements, their needs will rise.”
Although interest in acquiring housing and transitioning out of homelessness remained high at 91% of respondents from the three neighborhoods, the number of people who said they were on a waitlist was still relatively low at 38%.
Researchers also highlighted the finding that the demographics of Hollywood’s homeless population changed dramatically in 2024. The number of Black survey respondents decreased from 50% to 26%, and the share of white and Hispanic populations increased.
As in previous years, two-thirds of the Skid Row survey sample is Black, while the populations in the other neighborhoods are more diverse, the study found. About half of the populations in Hollywood and Venice are white.
Respondents also were more likely to report receiving benefits or income.
Health status reports also worsened compared to previous years in Hollywood. Respondents were more likely to report having served time in jail and less likely to report having received safe sex, harm reduction, documentation and housing assistance than in 2023.
In Venice, the homeless population continued to report slightly higher education levels, more receipt of Social Security and disability benefits and higher income. Unhoused people who are employed were more likely in Venice than in the other neighborhoods.
Respondents from Venice were simultaneously least likely to report ever being offered housing or shelter — 51% — but most likely to accept most forms of it when an offer was made. Across all three neighborhoods, the reported rate of receiving offers for supportive housing was a low 13%. Group shelter offers were higher at 39%, with less than half of the offers accepted.
In Skid Row, a decrease in the average age of unsheltered residents, a decline in reported time on the streets and more reports of eviction as a cause of homelessness “suggests that there has been significant turnover in the unsheltered population there,” according to RAND.
Compared with Hollywood and Venice, the homeless population in Skid Row continues to trend older, female and Black. Residents are also less likely to be working and more likely to report having mental health, physical health and substance use disorders.
The study is available at rand.org.
