Santa Monica's 2026 point-in-time homeless count found an 11 percent decrease in local homelessness according to new data released by officials.
The 2026 count found 718 people living in the city, down 94 individuals or about 11 percent, from last year, a decline driven almost entirely by fewer people living unsheltered outdoors.
The count found 389 unsheltered individuals this year, down 86 from 475 in 2025. Sheltered residents rose slightly, from 202 to 222, an increase of 20.
The number of improvised dwellings counted citywide — cars, vans, RVs, tents and makeshift shelters used as living quarters — also fell, from 135 in 2025 to 107 this year, a drop of 28. Cars used as dwellings fell from 23 to 14, and vans fell from 52 to 34. Tents dropped from 20 to 14. RVs rose slightly, from nine to 11, and makeshift shelters rose from 31 to 34.
City officials and the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which administers the annual count, caution that the figures are raw, unadjusted totals. They reflect actual persons and dwellings observed by volunteers and outreach teams the night of the count and have not been adjusted using a multiplier to estimate how many additional people may have been living inside each counted vehicle or structure. The sheltered totals also exclude people housed through vouchers, Inside Safe, Pathway Home or other programs with confidential addresses, meaning the true number of unhoused residents connected to city and county services is likely higher than the raw count reflects.
This year's decline follows a different trajectory than the one Santa Monica reported a year earlier. The city's 2025 count had shown local homelessness rising 5%, from 774 people in 2024 to 812 in 2025, even as Los Angeles County and the city of Los Angeles both posted declines. That 2025 increase was driven largely by car campers and by a rise in shelter residents. That contrasted with steeper declines elsewhere in the nearby area including Malibu and Venice.
However, this year it's the reverse with Santa Monica showing declines while the regional picture worsens.
LAHSA's 2026 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count found homelessness in the city of Los Angeles rose 3.4% to roughly 45,194 people, reversing two consecutive years of declines under Mayor Karen Bass. That increase was driven by a 7.9% jump in unsheltered homelessness — people living in tents, encampments and vehicles. Countywide, across the full Continuum of Care, homelessness rose 1.2% to 73,040 people. Bass attributed the reversal to federal policy under the Trump administration and to what she described as a 50% cut in state Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention funding, from $1 billion to $500 million, which she said cost the city of Los Angeles $70 million.
Santa Monica’s service area, which includes Santa Monica, Malibu, Culver City, Beverly Hills, Westwood, West Los Angeles, Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, Venice, Mar Vista, Palms, Playa del Rey, Playa Vista, Westchester, and Ladera Heights, saw an increase of 147 individuals.
The countywide and citywide figures come with their own reliability questions. A RAND Corporation study published in 2025 found LAHSA's volunteer-led Point-in-Time Count has significantly undercounted the region's unsheltered population in recent years. Comparing LAHSA's count with RAND's more rigorous Los Angeles Longitudinal Enumeration and Demographic Survey in Hollywood, Venice and Skid Row, researchers found the two counts aligned closely in 2022 and 2023 but diverged sharply starting in 2024, when the official count fell 26% short of RAND's tally, widening to a 32% undercount in 2025. The gap was most severe in high-need areas: the 2025 PIT count captured just 61% of Skid Row's unsheltered population, compared with 76% in Venice and 81% in Hollywood.
The discrepancy carries financial consequences, since the PIT count determines how federal homelessness funding and Los Angeles County's Measure A sales tax revenue are distributed, meaning undercounts in high-need areas could divert resources away from where they're needed most. RAND recommended greater reliance on professional field counters to cross-check volunteer-collected data. Following the report, LAHSA's 2025 count underwent a HUD-mandated review that found duplication and utilization errors, prompting minor revisions to citywide and countywide totals, including an upward correction to the unsheltered estimate after reviewers discovered an outdated file had omitted data from the Winnetka area.
RAND's most recent report, covering data collected from January 2025 through January 2026 in Hollywood, Skid Row and Venice, found the combined unsheltered population in those three neighborhoods held roughly steady — but rough sleeping without any tent, vehicle or makeshift shelter reached its highest level in the study's four-year history, rising 20% and now accounting for 44% of the unsheltered population in those areas, up from 30% when the study began in 2021. Tent counts have fallen sharply over that period, but researchers said the decline has been offset by increases in vehicle dwelling and unsheltered rough sleeping, a shift they link to encampment clearings that leave people without alternative housing.
LAHSA has faced broader scrutiny over its methodology and finances, including a 2025 forensic audit, the loss of roughly $350 million in annual funding from Los Angeles County, and the resignation of former CEO Va Lecia Adams Kellum.