Dr. Va Lecia Adams Kellum, Chief Executive Officer of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, has released the following statement following the conclusion of the volunteer portion of the 2024 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count:
Last night, LAHSA wrapped up the three-day volunteer effort to count our unsheltered neighbors across the LA Continuum of Care. Over 5700 of our neighbors and friends volunteered over the three nights. I thank each and every one of them for their efforts.
We always plan for the Count to go smoothly, but we also prepare for when things do not. Among this year’s challenges was a delay in how quickly data was transferred between the counting app and the dashboard. This challenge did not affect the collection or storage of the data. We worked with our partners at ESRI to ensure there was enough bandwidth to transfer the data smoothly on nights two and three.
We also experienced some issues with the volunteer dashboard. However, the contingency plan we established in 2023 and brought back for 2024 ensured that a LAHSA employee staffed each deployment site to troubleshoot any issues. LAHSA also staffed a technical support hotline that was available to every deployment site. We received positive feedback from Deployment Site Coordinators on the operational support they received from LAHSA.
Finally, as with any technology, some individual users experienced challenges with the app during the count. In these situations, our contingency plan called for the use of paper and pen to record the people and makeshift dwellings volunteers found during their counts. Once volunteers returned to their deployment site the data was uploaded to our central database. In the days to come, LAHSA will look closer at what went right and where we need to improve so we continue on the right trajectory in 2025.
I want to thank all of the volunteers, community members, elected officials, LAHSA staff, partner agencies, service providers, and stakeholders who came out and made this possible. We could not do this without every one of you.
While the volunteer portion of the Homeless Count has concluded, the effort to complete the Homeless Count continues. Through next week, LAHSA staff will recount any census tracts that were not completed or have missing data. The Youth Count continues through the end of the month, and our partners at USC will continue collecting data through its demographic survey into March.
We expect to release the results of the 2024 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count in late spring/early summer 2024.