Cuts could push thousands back to homelessness

14,500 L.A. County households could lose state, U.S. subsidies, erasing recent gains.

- ANDREW KHOURI

SHELTER resident Liliana Leyva has a Thanksgiving meal in her room with her children, ages 3 and 8.

GINA FERAZZI Los Angeles Times

Local officials are warning that more than 14,500 L.A. County formerly homeless households in subsidized, permanent housing could be forced back onto the streets or into shelters over the next year, mostly because of a loss of federal funding.

The predicted displacement would wipe away the slight reduction in the local homeless population since 2023 and is setting off a scramble by nonprofits and local government officials to try to blunt the potential effects.

“This is not a normal moment and we cannot treat it like it’s a normal moment,” said Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nithya Raman, who chairs the council's housing and homelessness committee. “There is a potential for the entire homeless services system that we have built up here to fall apart.”

The estimate that more than 14,500 households are now at risk of becoming homeless comes from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which did not say how many individuals could be affected.

About 3,500 of those households are at risk mostly because of state funding cuts, LAHSA said, and an additional 6,000 households could lose housing because a federal emergency housing voucher program, launched during the pandemic, is set to expire next year, four years ahead of schedule.

Between 5,000 and 7,000 additional households could become homeless because their rent in permanent homes is paid by a separate federal program known as continuum of care, LAHSA said.

Last month, the Trump administration announced it was slashing the amount that program would distribute for permanent housing and shift dollars to temporary housing options that mandate people enroll in services such as job training and mental health treatment.