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I'm Daveid Nazar.

A new report says there has now been a slight decrease in the LA homeless population.

So why are so many Angelenos questioning the validity, the accuracy of this new survey?

Possibly because Los Angeles has the worst homeless crisis of any urban metropolitan American city, with tens of thousands of people living on the streets of L.A., and many residents and business owners say they don't believe this crisis is improving.

In fact, they say it's getting much worse.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, known as Lhasa, reported the results of their 2024 Greater Los Angeles Homeless count, which says there's a slight decline in homelessness.

According to the survey, the county of L.A. now has a decreased homeless population of about a third of a percentage point, bringing the number of homeless people to about 75,000.

And the survey cites about a 2% decline in homelessness for the city of L.A., bringing the homeless number in the city to about 45,000.

In addition, LA also says thousands of homeless people have been placed into permanent housing.

If these stats are correct, this should be encouraging news.

Unfortunately, the streets tell a much different story, and that's why most Angelinos say they don't believe the stats, claiming they're misleading and not accurate.

Possibly that's because there's an all too common problem here in LA.

No sooner are homeless folks taken off the streets, many more find their way to the streets.

And that's why so many Angelina's are questioning the validity of the new Los Angeles Homeless Services Survey.

Just the object.

Misery on the street.

It's a third world country.

Shouldn't be like this.

People are suffering.

People are dying on the street.

Los Angeles business owner Sergio Moreno and his family have owned this check cashing business out here on what is now Skid Row.

Sergio's father, an immigrant from Mexico, purchased the property in business in 1983.

Now, four decades later, Sergio says this seventh Street downtown neighborhood is in disrepair, and he and his family are going to have to leave L.A. due to the homeless crisis.

Skid Row or Sergio's Business is located, has the largest homeless population clustered into one area more than 50 blocks of concrete and pavement.

A home for the homeless DTLa Skid Row is what's known as the Central City East, part of L.A., where some 4 to 5000 homeless people congregate each day.

All day, and most have very serious mental health issues or some sort of drug problem.

They have no money, no resources.

Some are victims of domestic violence.

Others living on the streets are homeless veterans.

Some are the victims of their own circumstance.

We tried to interview a few of the homeless out here.

They either refused or tragically had some type of psychosis or schizophrenia.

And we're not making any sense.

So obviously it's unfair to interview them due to their mental health.

The Los Angeles homeless crisis is devastating.

These homeless people are suffering.

They must have help with that, said Sergio.

Moreno says he and all his business neighbors near these homeless encampments are also suffering and they need help as well.

Sergio says they are the collateral damage of this homeless crisis.

There are billions of dollars that have been spent on this crisis yet what are the results?

We have more people on the street, and that's not just anecdotal.

What is personally happening to you?

What is personally happening to your business?

We have a lot of businesses that have left the area because due to the conditions on the street, many of the businesses cannot get insured anymore.

Insurance companies not going to take the risk.

Half of the fires in the city of L.A. are encampment fires.

You could drive around the area and see all the sports sites and buildings, which is nothing that the owner can control.

We can't push people away.

We don't want to push people to the curb.

We want people to be treated for their mental illness, treated for their drug addiction, and those that shouldn't be on the street that need to, you know, commit violence.

Like we just saw in that videotape.

You shouldn't be out on the streets with society.

We see more tents here, more RVs than ever.

In addition to that.

We have a new type of homeless, a lot of new, newly arrived immigrants that aren't staying in the missions.

They're ending up in the streets.

You look at the trend of how many people die on the streets.

Shouldn't be dying on the street.

We're the United States of America.

This should not be occurring here.

Sergio shared with us some of the video his store security cameras recently captured.

These are scenes of homeless UN homeless violence that took place at his building.

The first video here is of a homeless man punching a homeless woman.

She then tries to defend herself while on the ground.

Sergio tells us these types of violent crimes out here on Skid Row are very common.

However, not often reported to law enforcement authorities.

Sergio shared another video with us that his security cameras also captured.

Sergio believes this was either a drug deal gone bad, an attempted robbery or some sort of dispute on seventh Street outside his property.

A man runs after another man with a gun, then fires at him.

Miraculously, no one was injured or killed in this shooting.

Sergio tells me LAPD officers arrived on the scene to review his store's security camera video.

No further word on this case.

Harry Tashian is the part owner of Veteran Company, an automotive textile industry upholstery supplier business out here on LA's Skid Row.

Harry has co-owned the business for about ten years.

Located on Gladys Avenue, just a few blocks from Sergio's check cashing business.

Harry says his company loses hundreds of thousands of dollars each year, with customers and vendors refusing to do business in this part of LA Skid Row because they're worried about their safety.

It's very frustrating, and it's sad to see that every morning when I come in to work, I have to drive through all of this and I feel for them, honestly, I do.

There are all these, you know, all this funding that everybody talks about, all the politicians talk about this program, the success of that program.

I don't see any success anywhere.

All this money that's been spent, all these, legislations that have passed here, and this tax and that tax, I don't see it.

We've spoken with so many business owners out here like yourself.

They say it's taking a personal toll on them.

And it's also taking a professional toll on them.

They're losing money.

They're losing business.

Many are closing shop here and relocating to another part of the country.

What's your story?

Absolutely.

So imagine, my customers every day have to drive through this, drive around someone who's in the middle of the street doesn't care if there's a car, a truck, and, my competition.

Who, unfortunately doesn't have to be in this area or fortunately, does not have that problem.

We have vendors who fly in from Europe, vendors who fly in from China to see us and as soon as they walk in the office, they're like, are we at the right place?

I've had people not show up to interviews because they Google map our area and said, probably not going to come in here or insurance carriers.

The insurance carrier will follow up on Google Maps, and they'll see a couple of tents outside and declined to cover.

Do you feel safe to your employees?

Feel safe to your customers?

Feel safe?

No.

Why?

There was a stabbing.

There was a murder.

There was a shooting.

Something bad had happened that the LAPD came in and asked for camera footage.

And so how do you expect me to feel?

Safe.

What is the message that you want to impress upon city leaders and county leaders?

What must they hear from you, from the business owners who are suffering out here?

Number one, listen to us as well.

We help the city with employing people and paying our taxes.

Small business, small businesses are the biggest employer in the country.

So listen to what we have to say in addition to everybody else.

Just hear us out and, show us where this money is going.

Give us a plan.

A still a Lopez is the executive director of the Downtown Industrial Business Improvement District.

Estella represents the Los Angeles business community, providing advocacy and services for the business and property owners.

She says the DED is trying to preserve the LA industrial business community, which has been here in Los Angeles for about 100 years.

Today, this is a 64 block area of about 600 businesses that Estella claims are invisible to city and county leaders.

What I heard from the loss of report is that the drop has been minuscule.

But I don't need a report.

I have eyes and I don't what I see out here every day.

Now, have there been shifts in the population?

Absolutely.

Skid row 25 years ago was the only place where you would see something like this.

That's not the case anymore.

Los Angeles homeless.

There are no boundaries now there throughout the city.

Okay, so it's no longer concentrated here.

What you have here is a concentration of threats to the community's health, safety and the economy.

It's very difficult to do business down here, but it's also dangerous as an individual to work down here.

You never know when someone with either mental illness, drug addiction or a combination of the two is going to act out, is going to be in the throes of of something psychosis.

They go at it against each other.

They could very well hit you or one of your customers, or go into one of your businesses and cause havoc.

These are human beings for living on top of garbage and their own filth.

This is a scandal.

It is a threat to the people who live here, as well as the people who work here.

There's six people dying on the street every single day.

In addition to the fact that those who are out here are suffering from a variety of mental and physical illnesses.

So what is the answer?

Estella?

Everyone talks about emergency declarations, treating this like an emergency.

Well, anywhere in the world where there is a humanity in crisis.

You do see organizations like FEMA, Doctors Without Borders.

They respond, but they don't go person by person, by person with a with a notepad.

They gather these folks, they bring in medical supplies, they bring in diagnostic supplies, and they help these folks in our society right now.

There is a reticence to do that, to congregate people.

They want to treat people where they are well, where they are.

They're dying.

Elizabeth Mitchell is with the organization LA Alliance for Human Rights, a coalition of residents and business owners frustrated with the L.A. homeless crisis.

Elizabeth is chief legal counsel for the Alliance.

She and the alliance sued the city, arguing Los Angeles had not honored its 2020 settlement agreement that promised to build thousands of homeless shelters and sweep out all the homeless encampments.

In 2019 and 2020.

It was a do nothing approach.

It was a let people sit on the street.

We're going to try to build permanent housing as fast as we can, which is not fast at all.

This is way too expensive and people were just dying on the street in the meantime.

And so we brought this suit to try to shift that and say, let's, let's have a proactive approach and a proactive plan to try to actually get our arms around this and address this crisis.

So we filed a motion for sanctions against the city of Los Angeles back in February of 2024, as a result of 14 months of failed discussions on demanding milestones.

That we were entitled to under this agreement for encampment reduction, because part of the agreement is not just provide shelter and provide beds immediately to help people get off the street, but also make sure that we are offering it to them and getting them off of the street.

And for 14 months, the city of Los Angeles has done their nose at us.

So we filed a motion for sanctions for $6.4 million, which is maybe point 1% of the mayor's homeless budget.

It is, when you compare that with last year's budget of $800 million plus, it's really pretty minimal.

What is that $800 million plus loss of budget that you just mentioned?

So back in the 90s, when Lahsa was first started, it was like an $80 million budget or something like that.

My numbers are probably off, but it was significantly less.

Now it has ballooned to an $800 million budget.

They've got money coming in.

They're what's called a quasi a continuum of care.

They they take all of the grant money from the federal government, from the state government, elsewhere.

And their job is to really disperse it and to manage the homelessness crisis that we have.

The problem with Lahsa is they have all of the money, they have all the blame.

They have, none of the responsibility.

What's happening right now is people are being left to die and suffer on the streets, and nobody is out here saying, we are here to take care of you.

We are here to bring you inside.

It is not safe.

It is not healthy for you to be on the street.

As we travel further west outside the downtown L.A. area.

The Los or homeless count says the number of people experiencing homelessness in what's considered the West Los Angeles area has improved.

The survey states this part of L.A. had about 5500 homeless people in 2024, compared to about 6700 homeless the year before in 2023.

Like DTLa, West L.A. is dealing with its own homeless situation and many residents here are complaining in this case, possibly because West L.A. is a more affluent part of the city where neighbors have to pay a couple million dollars for just a small, modest home.

The Los Angeles housing market is out of control.

There's a housing affordability crisis throughout the region.

Middle class folks have difficulty purchasing a home.

Low income folks are priced out of the market, and in certain cases, some people can be just a paycheck or a health crisis away from being homeless.

With the exorbitant rents and the overwhelming home prices, many West L.A. residents, like their downtown neighbors, question the loss of home as survey numbers as being falsified.

To be fair, the city and county are taking some folks off the streets, no question.

However, in West L.A., like downtown L.A., residents here say for every homeless person, the city and county find shelter and services for many more homeless.

Make their way out here to these West L.A. streets.

No sooner are these encampments taken apart.

New ones are here days or weeks later.

Homeless crisis.

It's bad.

We can't mince words with that.

As a county leader, as an Angelino, your heart is with the City of Angels.

What is your opinion of the homeless situation?

Oh, it is a moral crisis without question.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly Mitchell is a third generation native Angeleno.

Supervisor Mitchell proudly represents LA's second district, a district of nearly 2 million of L.A. county's 10 million residents.

Prior to being supervisor, Mitchell was part of the California State Assembly and State Senate.

The second district encompasses communities like some of the downtown and West L.A. areas, also places like Compton, Carson, Gardena, El Segundo, Manhattan, Redondo, Hermosa Beach, and so on.

The fact that our unhoused family, friends and neighbors are no longer, frankly, segregated in what we know as Skid Row, but are in every community, every block all over L.A. County, created a sense of urgency for every community, every resident, every elected official that didn't historically exist.

And so I think that's brought us to a place where not only are we acknowledging that our numbers have increased significantly for a variety of reasons, costs a lot of money that live in L.A., salaries haven't kept pace with inflation.

We didn't build at the rate we needed to to keep pace with our population.

You know, when supply doesn't meet demand, costs go up.

So the variety of reasons that got us to this place.

But what gives me great hope is that we have unprecedented resources and unprecedented focused attention on real solutions.

When you hear Supervisor Mitchell of many of the residents, business folks in your district, your city, as you represent in other areas throughout the county, are you concerned that they have sort of a maybe perceptions reality that the homeless crisis is getting so much worse than, let's say, the loss of the recent 2024 survey, where they're saying there is a slight decline in homelessness, yet these folks aren't believing it.

Well, you know, it's interesting.

We've sat around this very table here in my Carson community office with business leaders in unincorporated areas of L.A. County, who say, help me, the RVs are blocking access.

My employees are afraid to come to work.

My customers are afraid to come to work.

I get it.

And the lahsa count is a point in time count.

It's over a series of a few days, where people are counted.

And the reality is, I hear it every day.

We hear from people who are relief.

Thank you.

We saw the cleanup.

We hear from people who say you cleaned it up, Mitchell.

You kept your word.

Two weeks later, they're back.

So I think the reality is, when it is not solved on my block in my community, the assumption is nothing has been done anywhere.

And I think the city and the county has been very consistent and vocal about the sense of churn in what we're experiencing, where we will house 200 a day and 200 new people lose their housing.

So all of our efforts to preserve the existing stock of affordable housing, to build new, to keep people where they are with all of our rent subsidy programs, you know, it costs less public dollars to keep people housed.

If they hit a crisis point, you lose your job, you have a medical emergency as opposed to them losing their housing.

They're on the streets and trying to get them rehoused.

So, you know, the notion that there's one solution, I think is a false narrative.

We have to keep people housed.

We have to build housing.

We have to build the full spectrum of housing, affordable work, workforce housing and market rate to really, take the lid off of this pressure kettle, if you will, with what has been created because of our lack of housing across the board.

I'm proud of the work we've done that might be invisible to most people in terms of providing supports, to tenants to provide support and rent reimbursement to mom and pop landlords, to those folks who really comprise the largest stock of affordable housing.

It's not corporate landlords, it's mom and pop.

So really looking at the infrastructure around tenant protections, how we support mom and pop landlords, how we've provided right to counsel, to tenants, family living in an RV versus a single woman living in a tent may have different needs.

And so we've got to support their needs to get them housed and more importantly, keep them housed.

When people say, just sweep these tents.

My question is, and where do we house them?

And what do I do to guarantee that they stay housed?

Because this churn is what people are seeing and experiencing on the street.

I am all over Los Angeles.

There are so many enormous abandoned buildings everywhere from sunset to Hollywood to West Delay to downtown.

They are vacant.

I don't know who owns them.

City, county, whomever.

Why not clear out the encampments?

Put these folks there?

Because something like a triage of mental health help, drug help, financial counseling, things that will help them because they've got to be safe from themselves.

And yes, there's so many of them mentally ill.

They don't want to leave the streets.

That's their familiar zone.

That's their comfort zone.

But maybe a little criminalization, but with a kinder, gentler, compassionate sort of approach.

Because they've got to be put somewhere.

What are all these empty buildings doing?

Why not just do that?

I don't understand.

And that I hear you and and I can't walk out my own front door or take my cans to the curb without one of my neighbors saying the very same thing, and I get it.

So when we talk about office buildings, you know, it also has to be an environment that, is cost effective to make the alterations to.

So it's habitable, that it has infrastructure that will meet their needs and that it works in terms of the unique need of the individual.

We have to build what meets the needs of people.

And I hear you.

If you're in the middle of a mental health crisis or have a mental health diagnosis, being placed in a former office building is not conducive to your health and well-being.

However, it's better than being on the pavement with a four or 5 or 10 freeway as your roof, as your ceiling.

I mean, it's better than where they are now.

You and I would agree, based on our kind of cognitive capacity.

But when you talk to people, paranoid schizophrenics and whatever, they also have a right to determine what is safe for them, what feel safe for them.

We know that under the freeway overpass is not what's best.

And I believe we are building creating options that are better for them.

I've always said that the root cause, the root cause of homelessness, is not the fault of the city, the county.

You guys are not responsible for, let's say, for example, the drug substance abuse or the mental health in us.

You're not responsible for domestic violence, where young women are forced to live on the street because they can't live in the environment they are in with this violence.

You're not responsible for a failed federal VA system that has our brave heroes returning from combat and living in their own filth on the street, people who served our country.

However, I also say what you are responsible for is responsibility, right?

Accountability and oversight.

And all the people we speak with, that's what they say is missing from the leaders of this great county is that there isn't that responsibility, oversight and accountability.

That so much money is thrown at the problem, billions of dollars, and it seems to get worse.

And that's that's a fair assessment.

And so when you talk about accountability and how much we've spent, we also have to understand what government actually costs.

And so we have to talk about what government services really cost.

And if we want to live in a civilized society, what it's going to cost us all either monetarily and L.A. county's $47 billion budget or what it's going to cost you and I.

When are you and I ready to see our, block change when we talk about density, when there was the bill in the legislature to allow private homeowners to build ADUs to expand, you know, housing options on their own properties.

The whole very delicate conversation about single family homes versus density that gets really delicate.

And so all of us have to really answer the question, if this is the moral crisis that we said it is, what am I willing to do to change it?

Most of the policies are not working.

We have a lot of money, a lot of resources.

And to me, what it's becoming, it's becoming an industry.

I think I'm more frustrated than anything.

Right?

As a society, we have a right to push back and say, that's my sidewalk.

That's not your house.

This is devastation.

This is a human rights crisis.

Everybody has good intentions.

Everybody means well.

But they have got to get to business.

This is obviously an extremely complicated humanitarian crisis with many layers of challenges.

And there's been a lot of criticism with regards to how L.A. city and L.A. County officials are dealing with the homeless crisis.

Some of the criticism is definitely deserved.

Some possibly not.

Props to L.A. County Supervisor Holly Mitchell for answering my questions to discuss this vital issue of homelessness, which affects so many, and we're going to have much more of my exclusive interview with the supervisor as we continue our investigation over the next few months.

I respect Supervisor Mitchell.

She takes on a problem, never runs from the camera, and I appreciate that.

Now, for the record, people are asking me why I haven't interviewed L.A. Mayor Karen Bass for this special report.

So just to be clear, for nearly two years I've emailed Mayor Bass and her communications people repeatedly.

I've spoken with the mayor's team over the phone.

I've sent messages to the mayor's office.

Nothing.

No reply.

For some reason, they ignore my many requests for an interview.

And that's disappointing because also, for the record, I know that Mayor Bass is trying to help the situation like supervisor Holly Mitchell.

Her heart is in the right place.

I hope Mayor Bass eventually speaks with the about the homeless crisis to share with our audience, at the very least, information about her Inside Safe program or any of the other homeless programs she's been efforting that have had positive results.

Thank you all so much for joining us for part one of this two part series, homeless in LA.

Now, next week on part two, we further our comprehensive investigation as I interview the Executive Director of the LA Alliance for Human Rights, and I also speak with the Vice president of the California Grocers Association.

So join us next week for part two of homeless in LA, and be sure to catch our program here on PBS or catch us on the PBS app.

Thank you so much for joining us.

I'm David Huizar.