Los Angeles homelessness expected to rise as Bass seeks reelection

Homelessness in Los Angeles was expected to rise 3.5% in 2026, with the number of people sleeping on the street up roughly 8% from 2025, after two straight years of declines. The reversal lands as Mayor Karen Bass runs for reelection and raises fresh questions about whether falling encampments reflected lasting housing stability or a temporary shift.

The Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count was conducted Jan. 20-22, 2026, and the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority had said its public release would come in late spring or early summer. By late July, the final public results were still being described through conflicting summaries, including a preliminary LAHSA executive summary that said 1,755 adults and children were counted in the 2026 Point-in-Time Count, down from 1,990 in 2025.

That preliminary summary described a drop of 235 people, or 11.8%, from the prior year and said overall homelessness had fallen 28% since 2023, while unsheltered homelessness had declined 34%. The later expectation of an increase, including more people counted in shelters, pointed to a narrower question: whether movement off the street translated into durable housing, or only a different form of homelessness.

Bass had already used the prior decline as proof that her approach was working. In July 2025, her office said annual homelessness had gone down two years in a row for the first time ever in Los Angeles, and LAHSA said declining homelessness had become a trend in Los Angeles County. Those readings turned the count into a political marker as much as a policy one.

LAHSA says the Homeless Count is meant to inform policy and strategy by showing geographic distribution and trends, and city and county leaders use the results to guide homeless-services decisions, shelter planning, federal housing reporting and public accountability. With Bass in a tight reelection fight, any uptick gives critics another opening to argue that years of spending and policy changes have not solved a crisis that remains one of Los Angeles’ most visible failures.