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2026 Homeless Count Reveals Bottleneck Stymied Progress Reducing Homelessness
Reductions in Time Limited Subsidies and economic factors caused homelessness to rise 1.2% in the LA region.
LOS ANGELES – Today, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) released the results of the 2026 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count. Following two consecutive years of steady drops, regional progress stalled, showing a slight 1.2% increase to an estimated 73,040 people in Los Angeles County and a 3.4% increase to 45,194 people in the City of Los Angeles. Neither change is considered statistically significant.
Administrative data, also released by LAHSA today, indicates that the increase does not come from the failure of any particular program. Rather, the data shows that the primary driver of the increase is a pause in new enrollments and permanent housing placements using Time Limited Subsidies (TLS). Funding reductions forced the pause on TLS enrollments; as a result, the number of people newly housed using TLS dropped from 10,308 in 2024 to 6,590 in 2025. This substantially contributed to the number of people the rehousing system permanently housed in 2025, which dropped to 23,532. That is an approximately 5,100-person decrease from the record high of 28,625 people permanently housed in 2024.
The reduction in available rental assistance slowed down the rehousing system’s efficiency. Without access to TLS, in 2025:
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The movement of people from interim to permanent housing decreased by 36% (12,120 to 7,770)
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The movement from the street to interim housing decreased by 8% (16,724 to 15,380)
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Movement from interim housing back to the street increased by 24% (4,708 to 5,842).
The lack of movement in the system left fewer available beds for people experiencing unsheltered homelessness to fill. This bottleneck contributed to the 3.3% rise in unsheltered homelessness in LA County to an estimated 49,002 people and the 7.9% rise in unsheltered homelessness in the City of Los Angeles to an estimated 29,115 people.
“This year’s count confirms a fundamental truth: access to permanent housing ends homelessness,” said Gita O’Neill, Interim Chief Executive Officer of LAHSA. “When our unhoused neighbors lost access to rental subsidies, the system slowed, there was less upward movement in interim housing, and progress stalled. Our community needs to come together to reinvest in permanent housing resources and advocate for resources from our state and federal partners to clear this bottleneck and get our region back on track.”
The reduction of TLS funding highlights the program's important role within Los Angeles’s rehousing system. TLS is a flexible, low-barrier rental subsidy that helps unhoused households quickly move into affordable housing. The rental assistance lasts for up to 24 months and comes with case management and stabilization services. The goal is to provide individuals and families the runway to become self-sufficient or transfer to another permanent housing subsidy.
“TLS works. It would be successful if all it did was help people secure affordable housing and provide the services to help them stabilize,” said Stephanie Graves, Chair-elect of the LAHSA Commission. “But it does more than that. By ensuring the system is working as intended, it also helps other people take the steps, like moving from the street to interim housing, that will help them find a permanent home.”
The rehousing system slowdown was further compounded by the severe economic pressures that persist in this region. In Los Angeles County, a household must earn an annual income of $110,000 per year to afford the average rent of $2,745/month; the region also lacks more than 473,000 affordable homes it needs to meet current needs. In this year’s PIT Count demographic surveys, 59% of newly unhoused residents cited economic hardship as the primary cause of their homelessness. Consequently, the number of people who accessed the rehousing system for the first time or for the first time in the last two years increased to 55,691 people. That means 2.37 newly unhoused people enter the system for every single person the system successfully placed in permanent housing.
To put the LA region back on track to reduce homelessness, LAHSA’s leaders called for sustainable, consistent, and flexible funding commitments from state and federal partners. They also called for the legal victories in LAHSA’s lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as lawsuits brought by the state of California and others, to stop the framework HUD adopted for its 2026 Continuum of Care Notice of Funding Availability. The lawsuits aim to protect thousands of households currently in permanent housing from losing their subsidies.
