Number of Unhoused Residents Drops Across Three LA Neighborhoods; 'Rough Sleepers' Now the Most-Common Type of Unsheltered Residents (2025)

A yearlong count of unsheltered people in three parts of Los Angeles found that the number of unhoused residents dropped significantly from the previous year, but those who remain may be increasingly difficult to move into housing, according to a new RAND report.

The study of unsheltered people in Hollywood, Skid Row, and Venice during 2024 found a drop of 15 percent from the prior year, likely driven by increased throughput to both interim and permanent housing programs.

However, researchers found that “rough sleeping” (living literally unsheltered, without a tent, makeshift shelter, or vehicle) showed little change. This form of unsheltered homelessness is now the most common type in the study areas, representing about 40 percent of the total unsheltered population.

The study found a nearly 700-person decrease in the combined unsheltered populations of Hollywood (a 49 percent decline) and Venice (a 22 percent decline). But that was offset in part by a 170-person increase in Skid Row (9 percent hike).

“Our latest count found meaningful progress in reducing the number of the unhoused, as compared to the two previous years,” said Louis Abramson, the study's lead author and an adjunct researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research organization.

“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 project is the largest count of unhoused people in Los Angeles outside the annual point-in-time tally managed by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. That county-wide count, largely conducted by teams of trained volunteers, is conducted during several consecutive evenings in January.

The RAND study, called the Los Angeles Longitudinal Enumeration and Demographic Survey (LA LEADS) Project, is conducted by the research organization's professional survey staff.

During 2024, counts of unhoused people were done every two months in the study neighborhoods. Researchers also surveyed 463 unsheltered people across the neighborhoods from July to October.

Survey participants reported staying in the same location for shorter amounts of time relative to past years. This finding is consistent with the removal of “shelter in place” orders and increases in sanitation and other encampment-resolution efforts—most common in Hollywood—that either move unsheltered people indoors or periodically displace them.

Researchers say that the overall decline in unsheltered homelessness has been driven mainly by a reduction in tents and makeshift structures. This leaves a more transient, mobile, and dynamic population. The fraction of unhoused people surveyed in Hollywood and Venice who reported living with literally no shelter reached record levels.

“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,” said Sarah B. Hunter, coauthor of the study and director of the RAND Center on Housing and Homelessness. “As more people live totally exposed to the elements, their needs will rise.”

While interest in becoming housed remained high across respondents from the three neighborhoods (91 percent), the number reporting being on a waitlist was still relatively low (38 percent). The demographics of Hollywood's population changed dramatically in 2024. There were fewer Black/African American unsheltered residents, and respondents were more likely to report receiving benefits and/or income.

Health status reports also worsened compared to previous years in the neighborhood. Respondents were more likely to report having been in jail and less likely to report having received safe sex, harm reduction, documentation, and housing-assessment assistance than in 2023.

The unhoused population in Venice continued to report slightly higher education levels, greater receipt of Social Security and disability benefits, and higher income. Respondents in Venice also are more likely to be employed than those in the other neighborhoods studied.

Respondents from Venice were simultaneously least likely to report ever being offered housing or shelter (51 percent), but most likely to accept most forms of it when an offer was made. Across all three neighborhoods, the reported rate of receiving offers of supportive housing was low (13 percent). Group shelter offers were higher at 39 percent, with a reported acceptance rate of less than 50 percent.

In Skid Row, a decrease in the average age of unsheltered residents, a decline in reported time on the streets, and an increase in reporting eviction as a cause of current homelessness suggests that there has been significant turnover in the unsheltered population there.

Relative to Hollywood and Venice, the unsheltered population in Skid Row continues to skew older, female, and Black/African American. Residents are also less likely to be working, and more likely to report simultaneously having mental health, physical health, and substance use disorders.

The study, “Annual Trends Among the Unsheltered in Three Los Angeles Neighborhoods: The Los Angeles Longitudinal Enumeration and Demographic (LA LEADS) 2024 Annual Report,” is available at www.rand.org.

Support for the project was provided by the Lowy Family Group through its funding of the RAND Center on Housing and Homelessness. Other authors of the report are Jason Ward, Michelle Bongard, and Rick Garvey.

The RAND Social and Economic Well-Being division seeks to actively improve the health and socioeconomic well-being of populations and communities throughout the world.

Topics

• Community Health and Well-Being
• Homeless Populations
• Homelessness
• Los Angeles
• Neighborhoods