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<\/p>\nThe two women, mother and daughter, sat on a mattress covering half the sidewalk on the shady side of Western Avenue, still shivering in the morning chill.<\/p>\n
As volunteer Joan Howard approached, her assigned mission was to tally the two women and keep moving. She had a census tract to cover on foot before 9 a.m.<\/p>\n
Howard was participating in a novel homeless count conducted by the nonprofit Hollywood 4WRD. About 60 volunteers with clipboards spread out over Hollywood on Tuesday morning to count every tent, makeshift shelter, lived-in vehicle and obviously homeless person. Their job was to observe and record, not engage.<\/p>\n
But in that moment, a conflicting instinct kicked in. Howard, a longtime volunteer outreach worker for the organization Food on Foot, dropped to her knees, took the daughter\u2019s hand and listened to their story.<\/p>\n
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Volunteers Joan Howard, left, and Kim Robinson, both with Food on Foot, look for homeless people while working with Hollywood 4WRD to count the homeless living on the streets or in their cars in Hollywood on May 19, 2026.<\/p>\n
(Genaro Molina \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
After their rental in North Carolina was condemned, the daughter said, they came with her husband and brother to Los Angeles to live with a relative, only to be rebuffed. The daughter, who is pregnant, and mother, suffering severe ankle swelling, both needed medical attention but had no idea how to get help. Their wallets were stolen, leaving them without identification.<\/p>\n
For the sake of the count, Howard had to move on. But the women\u2019s crisis gave a stark example of why Hollywood 4WRD wants to gather its own information to supplement the official homeless count.<\/p>\n
Keeping track of how many like them are sleeping outdoors without so much as a tent or vehicle to shelter them has become a major concern for the organization. As the city\u2019s cleaning and removal programs have reduced prominent encampments on Hollywood\u2019s streets, the number of people sleeping rough is on the rise.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe transformation in Hollywood is profound,\u201d said Louis Abramson, lead author of a Rand Corp. project that is the model for the Hollywood count.<\/p>\n
Since 2021, Rand\u2019s LA LEADS project has surveyed homelessness in Hollywood, Venice and Skid Row every two months, drawing insights that aren\u2019t apparent in the once-a-year countywide survey conducted by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.<\/p>\n
Rand\u2019s funding is now running out, potentially leaving Hollywood organizations without the fine-grained information they\u2019ve been getting from Rand.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were providing them with data they thought was valuable that they want to replicate on their own using the best practices we could bestow on them,\u201d Abramson said.<\/p>\n
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Volunteers from various homeless organizations receive their assignments while participating in Hollywood 4WRD\u2019s homeless count in Hollywood on May 19, 2026. <\/p>\n
(Genaro Molina \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
In its final report released Thursday<\/a>, Rand found that homelessness has leveled off in Hollywood after a steep decline in 2024, but that the way those remaining live has continued to change. <\/p>\n It found that 52% were \u201crough sleepers,\u201d 38% sheltered in vehicles and only 9% had tents.<\/p>\n The total of 650 people was down 300 from the count of 2024, with 400 fewer tents but 90 more sleeping rough or in vehicles.<\/p>\n A previous LA LEADS report<\/a> found more people in Hollywood than the official count and concluded that LAHSA was missing many of the rough sleepers.<\/p>\n The change has implications for homeless policy.<\/p>\n \u201cThe shift away from tent-dwelling towards rough sleeping will impede strategies to resolve unsheltered homelessness,\u201d the new report said. <\/p>\n Encampment resolution programs, such as Mayor Karen Bass\u2019 Inside Safe that offered shelter to tent dwellers, will have fewer to serve.<\/p>\n People sleeping in vehicles and on random sidewalks are harder for caseworkers to find and serve. <\/p>\n Volunteers Kim Robinson, left, and Joan Howard, both with Food on Foot, discuss where they will walk first while working with Hollywood 4WRD to count the homeless.<\/p>\n (Genaro Molina \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Service providers will face more stress and \u201coutreach teams will become less efficient as clients become more geographically diffuse and harder to find,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n As a volunteer on the LAHSA count in January, Hollywood 4WRD Executive Director Brittney Weissman had her own concerns, especially about the people sleeping in vehicles.<\/p>\n Many cars are stuffed with belongings, but does that mean they\u2019re actually lived in?<\/p>\n Weissman\u2019s three-member team struggled with the question.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were confused or unclear,\u201d she said. \u201cWe made a group decision to count a vehicle or not.\u201d<\/p>\n She thought they may have been too conservative, leading to an undercount. She wondered about how other teams handled it.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is likely to be a level of inconsistency,\u201d she thought.<\/p>\n The experience led Weissman to organize Hollywood 4WRD\u2019s own count.<\/p>\n As an organization that coordinates for about 50 homeless services agencies, it would use the data to help them adjust their outreach and engagement strategies.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to create data for ourselves to inform our efforts as a collective in Holllywood,\u201d Weissman said.<\/p>\n Tuesday\u2019s count involved volunteers from 12 organizations. Abramson, who besides his work at Rand is board chair of SELAH, a Hollywood and Northeast L.A. homeless coalition, is using Rand\u2019s methodology to produce estimates from the raw tallies.<\/p>\n To limit measurement error, the two-person teams were instructed to make decisions independently, so that each of Hollywood\u2019s 30 census tracts would, in effect, be counted twice. The two tallies are then compared for consistency. Any large discrepancies will be resolved by recounting the tract.<\/p>\n Volunteer Joan Howard, left, with Food on Foot, speaks with Jose Cabrera as she works with Hollywood 4WRD to count the homeless in Hollywood on May 19, 2026.<\/p>\n (Genaro Molina \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n A preliminary analysis shows the estimates tracking with LA LEADS\u2019 January survey with a slight uptick in tents from 60 to 74, Weissman said.<\/p>\n Final results will be announced Wednesday. <\/p>\n Howard, who has been doing outreach on Hollywood\u2019s streets for two decades, doubted that everyone got counted that day. In her experience, many people pack their tents in hiding places and lock their cars early in the morning to go somewhere for breakfast or to a job.<\/p>\n Even cars parked on the street that look pristine can be someone\u2019s shelter, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I could come around midnight, then I could really figure it out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n But that wasn\u2019t her primary concern. Howard wasn\u2019t cut out to tally the two North Carolina women and move on.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t leave them, I promise you,\u201d she said in a phone interview the next day. \u201cI went back.\u201d<\/p>\n She told them about the Hub at the Hollywood Adventist Church<\/a> where they could go for food, showers and help from caseworkers.<\/p>\n![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779447131_842_.jpeg\")
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