A team of volunteers in the Park Estates neighborhood counted four unhoused people, including Art, a guitar player unaware of the Multi-Service Center, the city\u2019s hub for homeless services. He sleeps wherever he can find cover and added, \u201cwherever I go, I usually get chased off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Volunteers deployed to the Westside South neighborhood, north of the Port, counted approximately 10 people sleeping on the street and at least double that number living in cars and RVs. Heather Filbey-McCabe, a volunteer who works with Mental Health America of Los Angeles, said she saw significantly more people living in makeshift encampments, tents and cars in a nearby area last year \u2014 so many that her team called in reinforcement volunteers to complete the count and surveys. She said she was \u201cshocked\u201d to see far fewer this year.<\/p>\n
Nicolas Mendoza, who emerged from a dumpster when volunteers arrived and joked that he slept on his bicycle the night before, speculated that the streets were clearer because city officials had recently collected identification information from the neighborhood\u2019s unhoused population in an attempt to get them into housing.<\/p>\n
Todd McQuiddy, a 70-year-old auto-body-shop worker, said his path to homelessness began with divorce. Now he lives in cars and a backyard, finding community with his five cats and people sleeping in the area. \u201cThis block is a tight group,\u201d he said. When volunteers arrived, he had just returned from Jack in the Box with breakfast sandwiches for two friends who had spent the night on the sidewalk.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Heather Filbey-McCabe, volunteer, asks questions of a homeless couple during the annual homeless count in Long Beach, Jan. 22, 2026. Photo by Kate Raphael.<\/p>\n