How WeHo counts the homeless

City Hall sent us this information in response to our story about this year’s Homeless Count, which proceeded last week with neither volunteers from the public nor media access.

Since 2009, the City of West Hollywood has participated in the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count. The count is directed by, and the responsibility of, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA).

At that time, the count was conducted every two years (in odd number years), and then in 2016 became an annual count. As mandated by the federal Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD), the LAHSA Count is conducted the fourth week of January, with West Hollywood’s portion of the count taking place on the fourth Thursday of January each year, with two COVID-related exceptions as noted below.

Pre-COVID, the City’s count deployed from the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station – Count participants/volunteers included City Council members, City appointed officials, Sheriff’s deputies, staff from the City’s contracted homeless services agencies, City staff, and other community members. Again, because this is LAHSA’s Count, everyone who participates is a LAHSA volunteer and is trained to participate in the count by LAHSA, including directions about how to count individuals, youth, families, cars, vans, RVs, tents, and makeshift shelters.

The last pre-COVID count was conducted in 2020. In 2021 there was no count due to COVID impacts, and the 2022 count was changed to the last week in February due to a surge in COVID variants. In 2023, the count was again conducted in the fourth week of January, and in West Hollywood specifically: on the fourth Thursday of January (January 26, 2023).

For the 2022 and 2023 Counts, COVID safety measures were employed similar to other count locations, utilizing a grab-and-go drive-up system to start and end the count, rather than providing an indoor deployment center. Additionally, as best it could, the count aimed to create general personal safety, as well as COVID safety, among teams, most of which would be in an enclosed vehicle for the duration of the process.

For 2023, LAHSA was seeking volunteers to cover 8,000 shifts to count over 3,000 Census tracts. Of those more than 3,000 tracts, West Hollywood is home to seven (7). Even with four people in a standard vehicle, the largest number of people needed to conduct the count would have been 28. The count in West Hollywood never has required or requested 50 volunteers. This is very different from our neighbors in the City of Los Angeles, for example, which due to its size and number of tracts, relied on volunteers for its count.   

Regarding information on the LAHSA website about volunteers or e-mails that may be generated to volunteers, LAHSA would need to speak to details, as this is not the City’s purview. As is the case each year, some locations throughout Los Angeles County have more volunteers than they need while others may not have enough. In order to support LAHSA to direct volunteers to the sites where they were most needed, the City of West Hollywood did not request additional volunteers through the LAHSA website, as there were enough people to count West Hollywood’s seven tracts.

The City of West Hollywood is very grateful to those who volunteered to assist with the West Hollywood count – particularly agency staff members from Step Up on Second, the Los Angeles LGBT Center, and Housing Works who already worked a full day on the frontlines and who then signed on to continue to serve our community by participating in the count late into the evening.

For more information about the LAHSA Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count – including details about results of the West Hollywood count as information becomes available from LAHSA – visit www.lahsa.org  or www.theycountwillyou.com.

For more information about the City of West Hollywood’s Homeless Initiative, visit www.weho.org/homeless.

West Hollywood Point-in-Time Homeless Count Results 

(these numbers represent individuals, but also vehicles, tents, and makeshift shelters*)

• 2009 — 59
• 2011 — 57
• 2013 — 45
• 2015 — 43
• 2016 — 81
• 2017 — 105
• 2018 — 100
• 2019 — 131
• 2020 – 112
• 2021 – N/A (No Count due to COVID impacts)
• 2022 – 40 (Count conducted in February, rather than January, due to COVID impacts)
• 2023 – TBD from LAHSA

_{*  Over the years, LAHSA has applied a SPA-level multiplier (Service Planning Area) to the raw data in order to standardize the estimates of people living in vehicles, makeshift shelters, and tents. For example, a baseline number of 6 could be calculated with a statistical multiplier to total 8.5. Such multipliers/conversion factors are used to estimate the total LAHSA count across the region, and those formulas change year over year.}

WEHOville’s Public Information Request: R000959-013023

On Jan. 30, WEHOville submitted a public information request to City Hall asking for the following:

Any and all documentation, communications (including e-mails and texts) and recorded media related to the WeHo Homeless Count conducted on Jan. 26, 2023, including but not limited to:
● Any and all emails/text messages from Dec. 1, 2022 through Jan. 31, 2023 sent or received by city council, city manager, city staff and city attorney referencing the count
● Any and all emails/text messages from Dec. 1, 2022 through Jan. 31, 2023 between city council, city manager, city staff and/or city attorney and the Los Angeles Housing Services Authority
● Documentation showing which City Staff members participated in the operation, what their roles were, how long they worked and how much they were compensated
● Preliminary count totals
● Documentation regarding Mayor Sepi Shyne’s and Mayor Pro Tem John Erickson’s participation in the operation, what their roles were, how long they participated
● A blank or sample copy of the paperwork/clipboard material given to each volunteer/city staff member ● Information regarding the transportation used during the count — how many vehicles were used? How many vehicles were city-owned?
● Any still image, video or audio recordings related to the count

We await the city’s reply.