Homelessness Holds Steady Across Three L.A. Neighborhoods as Rough Sleeping Reaches a Four-Year High
For Release
Thursday
May 21, 2026
The overall number of unsheltered people in three Los Angeles neighborhoods—Hollywood, Skid Row, and Venice—remained flat in 2025, but rough sleeping reached its highest level in four years, according to a new RAND report.
The 2025 Los Angeles Longitudinal Enumeration and Demographic Survey (LA LEADS) found that the combined unsheltered population was statistically unchanged between December 2024 and January 2026, but the composition of the population shifted substantially: rough sleeping—sleeping without a tent, vehicle or other shelter—rose by 20%, reaching its highest level in four years of monitoring.
“The total count held steady in 2025, but the makeup of the population continued to shift substantially,” said Louis Abramson, the study's lead author and an adjunct researcher at RAND. “Compared to a year ago, more people are sleeping completely unsheltered, more spread out geographically, and with fewer connections to the systems that contributed to the prior year's progress.”
Overall numbers were flat largely due to stalled progress in both Venice and Hollywood, each of which saw declines in 2024. Skid Row's homeless population grew again in 2025, hitting record-high numbers before ticking downward late in the year. It was the only neighborhood to have seen continuous growth in its homeless population in each year of the study.
Tent dwelling has fallen by roughly half across the study area since 2021, including a 23% drop in 2025 alone, but those reductions have been offset by growth in rough sleeping and vehicle dwelling, which rose by 11% in 2025. By January 2026, nearly 90% of tents remaining in the study area were in Skid Row, up from 60% four years earlier.
New survey data suggest tent removal may be contributing to the rise in rough sleeping. Nearly half of rough sleepers surveyed reported losing a dwelling in the past year, and 46% of those said it was confiscated or towed by government officials or service providers, suggesting some people may move from tent-dwelling to rough sleeping following encampment clearings.
“The continued increase in rough sleeping from 2024 to 2025 is concerning because our data show that this population can be harder to engage and often has greater clinical needs,” said Sarah Hunter, co-author of the report and a senior behavioral scientist at RAND. “It suggests encampment-based approaches may no longer be effective and that different strategies are needed.”
Skid Row remained the neighborhood with the greatest concentration of need, followed by Hollywood and Venice, though it also received the majority of outreach and housing assistance. In all three neighborhoods, barriers to service and housing remained high with formal employment nearly nonexistent, cash reserves limited, and most of the population lacking a cellphone or basic identification.
The report recommends tailoring homelessness interventions to neighborhood conditions and population needs, noting that encampment-focused strategies are not equally effective for people sleeping rough or living in vehicles.
“After four years of conducting this count, the unsheltered population today looks different from the population these strategies were built to serve,” Abramson said. “Successfully addressing current conditions means rethinking how we engage unsheltered people, bring them indoors, and support them once they are there.”
LA LEADS was the largest ongoing professional count of unsheltered people in Los Angeles outside Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority's annual point-in-time tally. It was conducted year-round by RAND survey staff and concluded in January 2026.
The report, Annual Trends Among the Unsheltered in Three Los Angeles Neighborhoods, was supported by the Lowy Family and conducted by the RAND Housing Center, which provides research and analysis to help address the critical challenges of housing scarcity and high housing costs, housing instability and homelessness. Other authors are Rick Garvey, Cyril Cherian, and Jason Ward.
About the RAND Education, Employment, and Infrastructure Division
The RAND Education, Employment, and Infrastructure (EEI) division aims to improve educational opportunity, economic prosperity, and civic life for all.
