Los Angeles' unsheltered homeless population surged nearly 8% in one year — a staggering jump that proves progressive policies prioritizing voluntary services over enforcement are turning working neighborhoods into sacrifice zones.
The numbers from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority are brutal. The city's total homeless population ticked up 3.4%, surpassing 45,000. But the unsheltered count — the people building tent camps in parks and under freeways — spiked almost 8%. That's not a statistical blip. That's a policy-driven catastrophe. Meanwhile, L.A. County as a whole saw its unsheltered population actually decline, a gap that makes clear the city itself is the problem.
Denver shows what works. Since 2023, Denver's unsheltered population dropped 64%. The approach is straightforward: police break up encampments and warn that repeated violations lead to arrest, while social workers connect people to services and shelters. As Samantha Batko, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Urban Institute, put it:
