This article is being co-published with The Imprint, a national nonprofit news outlet covering child welfare and youth justice.
Every January, thousands of volunteers fan out across the more than 4,000 square mile-expanse of Los Angeles County on foot and by car to tally the homeless. There are two point-in-time counts, one for adults and one for youth.
This year, for the first time, the volunteers did not search for unsheltered young people. Instead, county officials deployed a different approach: They paid homeless youth to fill out a survey and then refer their peers.
Young People to the Front, a nonprofit that coordinates the data collection for the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority alongside the University of Southern California, used a method the group says provides the most accurate snapshot of young people living on the streets or in cars and other makeshift settings.
The results were announced in July as part of a total tally of the county’s homeless. In January, there were 3,658 homeless youth, which includes 1,875 living on the street and 1,783 who were housed at a shelter. The count includes both people under 18 and young adults ages 18 to 24. Roughly 73,000 people of all ages were also counted, a slight increase over last year.
Young People to the Front Chief Executive Officer Robin Petering said this year’s Los Angeles County youth count is more precise than in years past.
“Young people experiencing homelessness are chronically undercounted,” she said. “We now have a better and more accurate understanding of the true number for this population.”
The new approach took place over the course of three weeks in January at 17 sites run by homeless services providers. Each young person received $20 for completing a survey that also asked questions about whether they had previously been in the foster care or youth justice systems, whether they had access to social services and when they first became homeless. If they refer another young person who completes a survey, they receive an additional $5. Payments maxed out at $35. Known as “seeds,” these youth recruited three other young adults experiencing homelessness from their network. Over time, the numbers grew as more young people shared the paid opportunity with their peers.
Because the referrals come from peers rather than strangers, the surveys are often completed by people who might have been overlooked by traditional canvassing, proponents of the research method say.
The county authority changed its approach in response to growing challenges in properly identifying the population. Finding pockets of homeless youth across the vast geographical expanse of L.A. County is already a challenge for understaffed service providers. But lately, they say there is an additional challeng — raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers that have driven many young people into deeper hiding.
Housing advocate Alexis Obinna, 30, grew up in the county’s foster care system. Between ages 18 to 26 she said she moved 23 times, often ending up with nowhere to sleep.
Obinna said counts of homeless youth have relied on outdated ideas of where they congregate, such as libraries and schools — places she rarely visited when she lived on the street.
“It’s very important that bureaucracies listen to young people, and the new numbers show that it’s working very well,” Obinna said.
Counts essential
Precise numbers are essential to serving the homeless. Annual metrics shape policy and drive federal, state and local funding. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, for example, uses the numbers to determine how much funding each region receives in annual grants.
In Los Angeles County, the new method of counting showed an increase of 533 more youth living on the street when compared with the numbers the previous method produced. Youth population counts have varied widely in recent years, from a low of 1,028 in 2022 to a high of 2,151 in 2023. The numbers start with individual counts, but both methods of tallying then use statistical modeling to project a total.
Housing experts The Imprint consulted said the new count of 3,658 does not necessarily mean there was an increase in youth homelessness over the past year. They also cautioned against comparing previous youth counts and this year’s new approach.
Simone Tureck Lee, senior director of programs and policy at John Burton Advocates for Youth, said when collection methods change, it can take several years of consistent data before officials and advocates can accurately assess trends.
“L.A. County should be commended for adopting a more robust approach to identifying young people experiencing homelessness,” she wrote in an email to The Imprint. “A more accurate count provides a clearer picture of the need in the community and helps ensure resources are directed where they’re needed most.”
Washington state relies on similar method
L.A.’s new approach — known as respondent-driven sampling — has been used to estimate homeless populations in Washington state’s King County, the area surrounding Seattle, since 2022. University of Washington Associate Professor Zack Almquist said the technique has been around for decades, and has been used to survey hard-to-reach populations such as sex workers and injection-drug users. While young people experiencing homelessness are often isolated, Almquist said they build extensive social networks because they go to the same centers, libraries, shelters or food pantries as peers.
“You’ll go deeper and deeper into the network, and you’ll slowly uncover even hidden minority populations,” Almquist said. “If you run it long enough, you’ll get really good coverage of most everyone in the population.”
Los Angeles County’s network of government and nonprofit homeless-service providers has been challenged by both federal action from the Trump administration and local budget cuts.
In a June 11 letter, the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced it was freezing funding for the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority while it conducted an investigation, citing “repeated false statements” and “irresponsible actions and failures.” Local officials are asking U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter to block suspension of the $240 million in federal funds used to house and support formerly homeless people.
On June 22, Los Angeles County supervisors cut some youth-specific homeless programs from its budget, including a host homes program and a service providing resource navigation, in response to the loss of state and federal funding.
Elizabeth Jimenez, an outreach worker with Safe Place for Youth, said she worries the county does not have the resources to properly serve those in need. She pointed to examples of the current strain: Matching a young person to a shelter, for example, used to take a week or two. Now it takes three weeks to a month to find an open bed that includes supportive services.
“This feels like a disservice to young people who are struggling to survive,” Jimenez said.
Jeremy Loudenback is a senior reporter for The Imprint.
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