Homeless Count In Los Angeles County Isn't Accurate: Study

LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CA -- A study released recently found that the region's annual campaign to count the homeless population in Los Angeles County is inaccurate. Los Angeles-based nonprofit Economic Roundtable said the count "not reliable enough."

The annual count organized by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority sends out hundreds of volunteers to the region in January to count the homeless population. This year, nearly 58,000 people were found to be homeless in the county.

But the number is far from accurate, Economic Roundtable said in a study.

"One source of this problem appears to be the demographic survey of unsheltered residents," the study said. "A second source of discontinuity appears to be inconsistency in how the street count is carried out. The third source of discontinuity is lack of statistical tools for identifying and correcting measurement error: the difference between the Count and the actual number of homeless residents."

The study offered several recommendations for improving the accuracy of the count including offering more "substantive training" to volunteers, providing suggested routes for counting homeless people, developing "standardized procedures for determining whether vehicles are occupied by homeless individuals," and using mobile apps "to document the GPS coordinates of each homeless contact."

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