The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority announced on Aug. 25 that outreach teams across Los Angeles’ Continuum of Care brought 5,312 unsheltered individuals inside and ended homelessness for an additional 472 people in the first half of 2021.

During the same period, the homeless rehousing system’s 240 outreach teams contacted 22,152 people 62,089 times. During those interactions, outreach teams offered people experiencing unsheltered homelessness small items to help meet their needs, including hygiene kits, bottled water and food.

Those interactions helped outreach teams successfully start 15,208 people on the path to permanent housing through assessments or beginning case management services.

“Outreach is a critical part of the homeless rehousing system that we’ve built since the implementation of Measure H in 2017,” Heidi Marston, Executive Director of LAHSA, said.  “From 2015-20, the annual number of contacts our outreach teams made has increased by 296%. There is no doubt that our outreach teams’ efforts have significantly contributed to ending homelessness for the more than 65,000 people our system has housed over the last three years.”

The data contained in HMIS accounts for about 80% of the efforts to address homelessness in Los Angeles County and does not include data from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs or the cities of Long Beach, Glendale and Pasadena.

Last month, LAHSA released its Best Practices for Address Street Encampments report, which offers guidance to LAHSA’s nonprofit partners on balancing the need for location-specific work on unsheltered homelessness with the importance of a regional, trauma-informed approach to unsheltered homelessness that effectively moves people from an encampment into shelter or housing in a lasting, sustainable way.

One of the key principles of LAHSA’s Best Practices for Addressing Street Encampments is to provide adequate, appropriate and low-barrier resources to people experiencing unsheltered homelessness. That includes securing enough shelter, permanent housing, and affordable housing to create a balanced rehousing system.

During last month’s Housing Inventory Count briefing, LAHSA showed that a balanced rehousing system contains five permanent housing placements for every shelter bed. However, the Los Angeles system has a ratio closer to one-to-one.

“It is critical that our region continues to add to our housing and shelter supply. We need more strategic investments that create low-barrier and private shelter options in areas of the county where the need is greatest. But shelter without a permanent housing option leaves people stuck,” Marston said. “Thanks to Proposition HHH, there are nearly 13,000 permanent housing units on the way, but we need thousands more to solve our region’s housing crisis.”