In this Jan. 25, 2017, photo, volunteers look over a map of San Pedro before heading out to count homeless people. (Photo by Scott Varley, Daily Breeze/SCNG)

L.A. Councilman Joe Buscaino takes part in a homeless count in San Pedro on January 28, 2015. (Photo by Scott Varley, Daily Breeze)

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Could Los Angeles’ homeless numbers be even higher than the experts think?

As homelessness has grown throughout Los Angeles County, the annual three-day street count, conducted by thousands of trained volunteers in January, has played a key role in determining how government allocates resources to address the issue.

The latest count from January put the countywide number of homeless at 58,000. That was up 23 percent from the year before.

But a study recently conducted by the Economic Roundtable — a Los Angeles-based nonprofit research organization that focuses on analysis of economic, social, and environmental conditions — suggests the counts may be under-estimating the number of people living on L.A.’s streets and in cars, concluding that it may be time to fine-tune how the count is done.

“Within the past year, Los Angeles County and City voters approved $4.75 billion for services and housing to combat homelessness,” the report’s introduction reads. “The Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count is crucial for identifying how this money should be used to help people escape homelessness.”

The nine-page report, released this month, includes a number of recommendations on how the count might be improved, including more “consistent, substantive training (for volunteers) that includes standardized procedures for canvassing census tracts, assessing risks and making decisions about which areas to investigate.”

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which oversees the count that began in 2009 and in recent years became an annual rather that bi-annual effort, recently opened volunteer signups for Jan. 23-25, 2018, countywide count.

Largest count in the nation

“Last year, the count attracted a record number of volunteers, over 8,000,” said Peter Lynn, executive director of LAHSA in a written statement in response to the Economic Roundtable report. “It has become a major civic event across Los Angeles County as residents walk and drive through their communities, counting their neighbors who are living on the streets and in shelters.”

It is, Lynn said, the largest count of its kind nationwide.

The methods used, he said, conform to standards established by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, part of the requirement included in a $100 million federal funding grant the county receives each year.

Specifically, the Economic Roundtable report, prepared by researchers Daniel Flaming and Patrick Burns, suggested that the counts may be underestimating the homeless and year-to-year statistics in some areas are inconsistent, raising the possibility of error.

“The top level finding from this assessment is that the homeless count is valuable for providing a fresh picture of homelessness, but the count data is not reliable enough to be used for comparing the number or population composition of homeless residents from different counts,” the report states. “In addition, there are indications that the homeless counts have underestimated the number of people who are homeless.”

The data, for the first time, was looked at as a body of information from 2009-2017 rather than taken as individual “snapshots,” Flaming said in a telephone interview with the Southern California News Group.

“It seemed to us that there were limitations in the data that somehow could be improved,” he said.

Methodology ‘unchanged’ since 2009

“The core methodology for carrying out the count has been unchanged since 2009,” the report states. “Progressively more effort and money has been invested in implementing the methodology, but the results still are not sufficiently accurate.”

Some tasks given to volunteers — such as counting the homeless living in vehicles — become “guess work that can vary from one census tract to the next,” Flaming said.

For example, on a recent count in which he was a volunteer counting the homeless north of Chinatown, the motto was “when in doubt, count.”

“For example, we counted a lot of vehicles as homeless dwellings but we didn’t see people in them.”

Additional volunteer training recommended in the report, he said, includes more consistent canvassing practices.

“I think to the extent that people can walk (rather than drive through an area to take the census) would be helpful,” Flaming said.

Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count took place over 3 days w/ organizers getting outcome to better target correct funding & services needed pic.twitter.com/3KFR9C6sV7 — LA This Week (@LATW35) February 8, 2017

“With the money voters have approved, this data is increasingly important for planning where investments should be made,” Flaming said.

Some input not feasible

Lynn from LASHA said the input is welcome, but added that some of the recommendations weren’t practical.

“If adopted, some of its recommendations could negatively affect the collection of critical information,” Lynn said in his written response. “Others are not feasible given the scope and size of this effort.”

Flaming said a meeting was held with LASHA to go over the findings.

“Some of the things they were interested in and some of the things they thought would be pretty hard,” Flaming said, acknowledging the count is a major undertaking.

Some of the red flags that caught their attention from the data from the counts so far, Flaming said, were year-to-year inconsistencies and unusual spikes in demographic figures.

Improvements also could be made, he said, on the counts of children who are homeless by increasing the sample size.

Flaming said the approval of more funding last year should make an impact on combating the problem that will likely be around for years to come.

Earlier intervention, transitional housing

He believes more early intervention along with transitional housing will be important as officials search for responses.

“Permanent housing is important, but it’s just awfully expansive,” Flaming said of Los Angeles’ primary focus to combat homelessness. “When we look at the homeless data, we see a lot of people making quick exits. A lot of people are homeless for a week or less and they get out. So increasing that rate of early exits is important.”

Early intervention while people are still capable of working is among the responses that can yield the most benefits, he said. The longer people are homeless, the more difficult it is to transition back into the mainstream, Flaming said.

“It’s important to intervene a lot earlier (than often is the case), before people have so much wreckage in their lives. … to help people get their lives back together while they can still think of themselves as productive.”

Recommendations in the report include:

Require volunteers to participate in more substantive training

Provide suggested route on the maps to teams to make sure areas aren’t duplicated and are covered only once

Develop reliable and standardized procedures for determining whether vehicles are occupied

Maximize the number of teams that walk instead of drive their routes

Where possible, integrate the demographic survey (done separately) as a uniformly random component of the street count.

Increase the number of families with children reached by the demographic survey

Carry out demographic survey in a random sample of locations rather than in locations influenced by opportunity or convenience

Support detailed analysis and widespread dissemination of information from the demographic survey so there is more collaboration

Use a “decoy” quality assurance mechanism by employing adults to pose as homeless individuals during the count to verify whether they are found and counted

Develop a more accurate statistical model to estimate the numbers

Use other data to integrate the overall information

An earlier version of this story included an incorrect figure for the county’s HUD grant.