Los Angeles County officials announced Tuesday the county will apply to HUD to take over four federal functions LAHSA relinquished — the annual point-in-time count, the annual federal funding application, the Homeless Management Information System, and the Coordinated Entry System — while the city of Los Angeles is seeking only the HMIS and CES functions. The move follows LAHSA's September 16 vote not to continue as lead agency for the Los Angeles Continuum of Care, which covers 85 cities plus unincorporated county. County counsel said any departure from the LAHSA joint-powers authority would require 180 days' notice; about $241 million already earmarked for the region by Congress is at stake.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week overruled U.S. District Judge David Carter's partial preliminary injunction that had allowed LAHSA access to federal homelessness funding for fiscal year 2026.
The 2026 homeless count recorded 671 RVs in the 400 square miles of unincorporated Antelope Valley desert, down from 1,432 the year before, a drop that accounted for three-fourths of a 21% countywide decrease in RVs. Pearblossom Town Council president Christopher Minsal, who led the local canvass teams, and council member Jose Centeno said the numbers are wrong and that RV arrivals have not slowed; tract-level tallies in Littlerock/Pearblossom swung from 4 to 349 to 253 over three years. LAHSA did not dispute the miscount assessment and defended its method for counting the area in a statement.
The L.A. City Council on August 26 called for a review of the 2026 point-in-time count, which showed a 1.2% countywide increase in homelessness.
The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously August 26 to request a review of LAHSA's 2026 point-in-time homeless count, citing accuracy concerns. The count showed homelessness in District 8 increased 128% from 2025 to 2026, and in one census tract covering the West Park Terrace neighborhood the number of unhoused people observed went from fewer than 20 in recent years to 277 in 2026.
The Los Angeles Times reported August 11 that an accounting error caused nearly half of the increase in the city's 2026 homeless count.
The Times reported that Skid Row shelter beds at the Union Rescue Mission — counted in some years and omitted in others because the shelter does not use LAHSA's data system — accounted for most of a reported 614-person rise in Skid Row's sheltered population, inflating the city's 2026 count increase. The paper's calculation put the citywide increase at just under 1.9% rather than the reported 3.4%. Mayor Bass said LAHSA did not tell her office about the discrepancies before release; LAHSA said singling out one factor "can be inaccurate and misleading."
LAHSA reported the city's 2026 count as 45,194 people, a 3.4% increase, on July 23.