Two women, mother and daughter, were sitting on mattresses half on the sidewalk on the shady side of Western Avenue, still shivering in the morning chill.
As volunteer Joan Howard approached, her assigned mission was to match the two women and keep moving. He had a census tract to walk before 9 a.m.
Howard was participating in a unique homeless count organized by the non-profit Hollywood 4WRD. About 60 volunteers with clipboards fanned out across Hollywood on Tuesday morning to count every tent, makeshift shelter, occupant vehicle and apparently homeless person. Their job was to observe and record, not engage.
But at that moment, a contradictory trend emerged. Howard, a longtime volunteer outreach worker for the Food on Foot organization, got down on her knees, held her daughter’s hand and listened to her story.
Volunteers Joan Howard, left, and Kim Robinson, both with Food on Foot, look for homeless people while working with Hollywood 4WRD to count the homeless living on the streets or in their cars on May 19, 2026 in Hollywood.
(Gennaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
After their rental in North Carolina was condemned, they came to Los Angeles with her husband and brother to stay with a relative, but were rebuffed, the daughter said. The daughter, who is pregnant, and the mother, who is suffering from severe ankle swelling, both needed medical care, but they did not know how to get help. His wallet was stolen, due to which he could not be identified.
For the sake of count, Howard had to move on. But the women’s crisis provides a clear example of why Hollywood 4WRD wants to collect its own information to supplement the official homelessness numbers.
Keeping track of how many people like him are sleeping outside without tents or vehicles has become a major concern for the organization. As the city’s cleanup and removal programs have reduced major encroachments on Hollywood’s streets, the number of people sleeping rough is increasing.
“The change in Hollywood is profound,” said Louis Abramson, lead author of the RAND Corp. project, which models the Hollywood count.
Since 2021, RAND’s LA LEADS Project has surveyed the homeless in Hollywood, Venice, and Skid Row every two months, yielding insights not evident in the once-a-year countywide survey conducted by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.
RAND’s funding is now ending, potentially leaving Hollywood organizations without the detailed information they receive from RAND.
“We were providing them with data that they found valuable and that they wanted to replicate on their own using the best practices that we could provide them,” Abramson said.
Volunteers from various homeless organizations receive their assignments while participating in Hollywood 4WRD’s homeless count on May 19, 2026 in Hollywood.
(Gennaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
In its Final report released on ThursdayRAND found that homelessness has dropped in Hollywood after a sharp decline in 2024, but survival patterns continue to change.
It found that 52% were “rough sleepers”, 38% were sheltered in vehicles and only 9% had tents.
A total of 650 people were 300 less than the 2024 count, with 400 fewer tents but 90 more people sleeping rough or in vehicles.
A previous report by LA LEADS found more people in Hollywood than the official count and concluded that LAHSA was understaffed by too many people.
The change has implications for homelessness policy.
“The shift from tent-dwelling to rough sleeping will hamper strategies to solve unsheltered homelessness,” the new report says.
Encampment resolution programs, such as Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe, which provided shelter to those living in tents, will have fewer resources to serve.
Caseworkers find it difficult to locate and serve people sleeping in vehicles and on unkempt sidewalks.
Volunteers Kim Robinson, left, and Joan Howard, both with Food on Foot, discuss where they will walk first when working with Hollywood 4WRD to count the homeless.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
It said service providers will face greater stress and “outreach teams will become less efficient as clients become more geographically dispersed and harder to find.”
As a volunteer at the LAHSA count in January, Hollywood 4WRD Executive Director Brittany Weissman had her own concerns, especially about people sleeping in vehicles.
Many cars are filled with stuff, but does that mean they are actually occupied?
Weissman’s three-member team had to grapple with this question.
“We were confused or unclear,” she said. “We made a group decision whether or not to count a vehicle.”
He thought they may have been too conservative, leading to an undercount. He wondered how other teams handled it.
“There is likely to be a level of inconsistency,” he thought.
The experience inspired Weisman to organize his own account of the Hollywood 4WRD.
As an organization that coordinates for about 50 homeless service agencies, it will use the data to help adjust their outreach and engagement strategies.
“We want to create data for ourselves to inform our efforts collectively in Hollywood,” Weissman said.
Volunteers from 12 organizations were involved in Tuesday’s count. Abramson, who in addition to his work at RAND is board chair of the Hollywood and Northeast L.A. homeless coalition SELAH, is using RAND’s methodology to generate estimates from raw data.
To limit measurement error, two-person teams were instructed to make decisions independently, so that each of Hollywood’s 30 census tracts could, in fact, be counted twice. The two lengths are then compared for consistency. Any major discrepancy will be resolved by recalculating the tract.
Joan Howard, left, volunteer with Food on Foot, talks to Jose Cabrera as she works with Hollywood 4WRD to count homelessness in Hollywood on May 19, 2026.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
Weissman said a preliminary analysis shows a slight increase in the number of tents, from 60 to 74, according to LA Leads’ January survey.
The final results will be declared on Wednesday.
Howard, who has been preaching on the streets of Hollywood for two decades, was skeptical that everyone was counted that day. According to his experience, many people pack their tents into stashes and lock their cars early in the morning before heading somewhere for breakfast or a job.
Even cars parked on the street that look ancient can become someone’s haven, he said.
“If I can come around midnight, I can really figure it out,” she said.
But that was not his primary concern. Howard wasn’t ready to match the two women from North Carolina and move on.
“I didn’t leave them, I promise you,” she said in a phone interview the next day. “I went back.”
He told them about the hub Hollywood Adventist Church Where they could go for food, showers, and help from caseworkers.
He also invited them to his organization, eating on foot Where every other Sunday UCLA provides food as well as medical and social services.
“It would be absolutely wonderful if they could go and get some help because they need it,” she said.
