L.A. city and county are continuing to see a sharp rise in homelessness — with newly released point-in-time count numbers showing the number of unsheltered people rising 14% from the prior year.

That continues a longer-term trend of more and more people living on L.A.’s streets. Unsheltered homelessness — which refers to people living outdoors in vehicles, tents and makeshift shelters like propped-up tarps — is up 40% over the past five years, rising to 55,155 people countywide.

“The system overall has failed — each of our systems, both the rehousing system, [and] the health and human services system,” said Va Lecia Adams Kellum, who leads the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) that oversaw the count, in response to a question from LAist at a media briefing.

“Certainly we have learned from these last two years or so that more coordination and more alignment of resources is needed.”

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