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Preliminary data show up to 10% drop in LA-area unsheltered homelessness
VOL. 13,
LA Times: Edison towers in Eaton Fire zone had ‘ignition risks’ By Joe Taglieri
By Jose Herrera, City News Service
joet@beaconmedianews.com
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iting raw data from the 2025 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, officials announced Thursday that they expect to see a 5% to 10% decrease in unsheltered homelessness in the region, which would mark the second consecutive year of such a decline. According to the Los Angeles Homeless Service Authority, the city- county joint homeless agency, the preliminary results are in line with last year’s outcome, which showed a 10.7% and 5.1% decrease in unsheltered homelessness within the city and the county of Los Angeles, respectively. The final results of the 2025 count are expected to be released in late spring or early summer. “When I first came to LAHSA, I publicly stated that we wanted to reduce unsheltered homelessness within three years,” LAHSA CEO Va Lecia Adams Kellum said in a statement. “We’ve done it in two.” “The turning point came when the city and county aligned by declaring states of emergency on homelessness and proceeded to collaborate through LAHSA to address the crisis. We commend them for that,” she added. LAHSA officials noted preliminary numbers do not include an annual multiplier developed by its partners at USC which plays
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positive change — encampment resolution efforts such as LA Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe initiative and the county’s Pathway Home; strike teams tasked with preventing bottlenecks in the re-housing system; batch matching, a method that identifies multiple people for every supporting housing through one application; and master leasing, an initiative that allows the agency to lease entire apartment buildings and house people faster. “It’s important for decision-makers to focus
outhern California Edison power lines near the possible origin of the Eaton Fire were identified as fire hazards and overdue for maintenance, according to the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday. Company records filed with the state and obtained by the Times show that Edison was aware that some power-line towers near a suspected ignition point posed fire hazards, the newspaper reported. Towers on three lines now under suspicion were considered a potential “ignition risk” and long overdue for crucial maintenance work, according to the Times. Two power lines remained active until after the fire erupted and a third, the Mesa-Sylmar line, was decommissioned in 1971. But some investigators and attorneys suing Edison believe the MesaSylmar transmission line may have become energized during the Jan. 7 firestorm fueled by fierce winds and dry weather. SCE records show 94 open work orders along the three lines as of Dec. 31, with some described as “ignition risks” because of concerns about vegetation in the area, damaged insulators and loose connectors, the Times reported. Seven of the 94 open work orders were for towers along the decommissioned Mesa-Sylmar line. Videos by area residents appear to show flames at the bases of the three towers just prior to the fire’s spread toward Altadena. In a filing last month, Edison said it was evaluating the possibility that the blaze was started by a reenergization of its unused Mesa-Sylmar line. “We don’t know what caused the Eaton fire, and we’re not seeing any typical or obvious evidence associated with utility-caused ignitions,” SCE Vice President of Transmission Raj Roy told the Times. He added that the company is “going to do a thorough investigation ourselves, and once we know anything that tells us otherwise, we’re definitely going to be transparent.” Longtime fire safety expert Vyto Babrauskas said the decommissioned line could have become electrified Jan. 7 via a principle called induction. “An electromagnetic field from the transmission line that is operating will basically cut through that dead line and induce a current in it,” he told the Times. Babrauskas said he believes the work orders noted ignition risks “precisely because of this induction possibility — that high voltages would be induced.”
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See Edison towers Page 28
Tents line a sidewalk in downtown Los Angeles. | Photo courtesy of Russ Allison Loar/Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
a crucial role in developing the annual count estimate. Compared to 2024, the 2025 raw data showed an approximately 3,600 fewer counts of unsheltered homelessness, or individuals living in tents, makeshift shelters and cars. The agency hailed the early results, which officials say show the region is on the right track to “solving” homelessness. Data reflect a decline in unsheltered homelessness within the LA Continuum of Care, consisting of every city and unincorporated area the county — with the exception of Glendale, Pasadena and
Long Beach. Those three cities have separate departments that conduct annual homeless counts. In January, LAHSA released system data for fiscal year 2023-24, which showed that within 12 months, the re-housing system performed more efficiently with 45% more people moving from the street into permanent housing, 32% more unhoused people moved into interim housing, and another 29% of people moved from interim to permanent housing. LAHSA officials credited four measures for the
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