XPost: alt.society.homeless, sbay.politics, talk.politics.guns   
   XPost: alt.politics   
   From: another.black.incompetent@latimes.com   
      
   The South Bay and Long Beach areas saw an increase in their homeless   
   populations —  as did Los Angeles County as a whole — over the past year,   
   according to data released on Thursday, June 29.   
      
   Related: Homeless population rises 9% in LA County   
      
   The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority conducted its an annual point-   
   in-time survey throughout LA County — except in Long Beach, Pasadena and   
   Glendale — earlier this year and published the data on Thursday.   
      
   LAHSA’s data largely focused on Los Angeles city proper and the county in   
   general, offering scant in-depth information about the homeless population   
   in the South Bay and Long Beach areas. The data also did not have a city-   
   by-city breakdown. Instead, the data shows homeless populations by service   
   planning areas, or SPAs which are essentially regional breakdowns.   
      
   It appears LAHSA may not release city-by-city data breakdowns this year   
   because of “imprecise extrapolation process at the city level,” according   
   to the South Bay Cities Council of Governments.   
      
   Representatives for that agency, which is a coalition of 16 cities, said   
   they had meetings with LAHSA to review the 2023 data.   
      
   LAHSA didn’t confirm whether it planned to release the city breakdowns, or   
   when.   
      
   “Homeless Count data below the SPA level is not typically available on the   
   day of the release,” LAHSA spokesperson Chris Yee said Thursday. “We are   
   working with our researchers on the data and will provide an update soon.”   
      
   The city-by-city breakdowns, however, were available with the rest of the   
   data when the results of LAHSA’s 2022 count were released in September.   
      
   Ronson Chu, the SBCCOG’s homeless services manager, said the agency is   
   unlikely to release the specifics because LAHSA is still working out the   
   kinks with its new data collection methods.   
      
   Prior to 2022, Chu said in a Thursday interview, the agency had only ever   
   employed a paper survey to collect information for the homeless count.   
      
   But the agency transitioned into using apps since then — and has employed   
   two separate ones in the past two homeless counts.   
      
   “There’s growing pains,” Chu said. “And so what you’re seeing might be the   
   result of this new data collection methodology.”   
      
   LAHSA itself, meanwhile, said in a report released Thursday that the   
   agency conducts extensive data quality control to provide a reliable   
   countywide overview of the unhoused population — but that the report   
   “isn’t a useful guide” to neighborhood-level homelessness.   
      
   Still, its a marked change from LAHSA’s reports in previous years.   
      
   “I think this year, what (LAHSA) saw and what we saw was just more   
   fluctuations than we’ve seen in the past,” Chu said. “I think they’re just   
   a higher discomfort level at at kind of that imprecise nature of the city-   
   level data.”   
      
   Related: City of Los Angeles sees a 10% increase in its homeless   
   population   
      
   LAHSA also said that various communities have established their own   
   individual counts, which could provide a more nuanced understanding of   
   homelessness on a local level — though there are only three major cities   
   in Southern California that do so.   
      
   Long Beach is among those cities that conducts its own homeless count.   
   That city’s Department of Health and Human Services released the results   
   of its 2023 survey in late April, with the data showing about a 4.6%   
   increase in the amount of unhoused folks there compared to the year prior.   
      
   That result marked Long Beach’s smallest increase in the overall   
   population of unhoused people since 2019. The 2022 results, comparatively,   
   found a 62% spike in unhoused people in the city over a two year period;   
   there was no homeless count in 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic.   
      
   City officials and homeless advocates largely blamed that whopping jump on   
   economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic throughout 2020 and 2021.   
      
   The 2023 results, meanwhile, were touted by city officials as progress and   
   recovery from the pandemic’s impact in years prior.   
      
   But in Long Beach’s neighboring cities, throughout the South Bay and in LA   
   county generally, the unhoused population appears to be growing, despite   
   regional efforts to address the issue.   
      
   The amount of unhoused people increased in all but one SPA, which are   
   geographical distinctions within LA County used by the county Department   
   of Public Health to develop targeted services based on the specific needs   
   of each community, according to Thursday’s data.   
      
   SPA 8 — the planning area that includes the entire South Bay, from the   
   Harbor Area to El Segundo to Inglewood — saw the second largest increase   
   countywide, according to the data, with a total unhoused population of   
   6,476 people. Long Beach was not included in that data.   
      
   That represents an increase of more than 2,000 more people who were   
   homeless in that SPA compared to last year — a 45.7% increase.   
      
   In SPA 7, meanwhile, the homeless population increased by more than 1,700   
   people over the past year, the data said. SPA 7 accounts for several Long   
   Beach-area cities, including Bellflower, Downey, Cerritos, Lakewood and   
   Hawaiian Gardens.   
      
   There were 6,511 people who were homeless in that area at the time the   
   count was conducted in January, the report said. That represents a 36.2%   
   increase compared to 2022.   
      
   But even with that sobering information, some cities — who don’t conduct   
   their own surveys, and rely on LAHSA’s data to inform their own strategies   
   to address homelessness — say the available data doesn’t provide a clear   
   enough understanding of the crisis locally.   
      
   “I’m concerned that (LAHSA isn’t) sharing the numbers by city because   
   obviously we had people that were deployed in our city to count the   
   homeless in our city,” Torrance Councilmember Mike Griffiths said on   
   Thursday, “and so to me, I would think those numbers are available and I   
   think it’s important that we have that.”   
      
   Specifically, it would be helpful to know on a granular level whether   
   Torrance’s recently launched tiny home interim shelter has been successful   
   in reducing the city’s overall homeless population, Griffiths said.   
      
   “We want to know that our efforts are paying off,” Griffiths said. “By   
   creating the village and paying for that, the hope (was) that this was   
   going to decrease our homeless count in our city — and and to hear that   
   it’s potentially gone up is very troubling.”   
      
   Chu and the SBCCOG, though, have taken issue with LAHSA’s SPA 8 number —   
   at least for the 16 incorporated cities the coalition represents,   
   including Torrance, Carson, El Segundo, Rolling Hills, Inglewood,   
   Manhattan Beach and Palos Verdes Estates.   
      
   “We have not been able to confirm the SPA number,” Chu said. “We have   
   asked LAHSA to get a more detailed breakdown of the number — most years,   
   we’re able to do a sum of the parts and get close to the SPA number.”   
      
      
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