2013 Homeless Count Results to Be Released
The Los Angeles Homeless Service Authority along with Downtown Pathway Home, Lamp Community, the Los Angeles Central Providers Collaborative and Community Solutions will hold a community briefing at the Union Rescue Mission Thursday to release the statistics from the 2013 LA Homeless Count.
The 2013 count was the fifth biennial count conducted to help the city determine and monitor the extent and cause of homelessness in Los Angeles County.
According to the Los Angeles Homeless Service Authority, the 2009 count showed about 52,931 homeless individuals, and during the 2011 count, the number dropped to 51,340.
The organization hopes the number will continue to drop, but are uncertain due to the recent recession.
About 532 people were surveyed during the 2013 count and 37 percent of those people were considered vulnerable.
Hazel Lopez, the Pathway Home Project Coordinator, says vulnerable individuals are people that have “lots of medical conditions or have been homeless for ten years or more.” Lopez says these individuals are “more likely to die on the street.”
Lopez also said there were a change of trends with the 2013 homeless population.
“Now there’s a lot more people that became homeless in cities other than LA and have moved to LA because we have a lot of services geared toward homeless folks.”
In addition, the homeless population in the past have been “people that have morbid issues, that is mental health issues, a medical condition, or substance abuse issues.”
Now, she says, there is a “higher rise in people that have become homeless because of economical reasons such as losing a job or becoming evicted from their home.”
