Report Claims Over HALF of LA’s Homeless Population Moved There From Outside the City

A lively mayoral campaign in Los Angeles has shed light on more than a few inconvenient truths about life in the nation’s second-most populous city.

Homelessness has been among the issues debated extensively throughout the race, and a new report offers additional context on the citywide epidemic.

As City Journal reported:

Los Angeles hosts the nation’s largest unsheltered homeless population. In recent years, despite billions in city and county spending, L.A.’s once-pristine streets have become littered with tents, drugs, and feces. City leaders have made elaborate promises about managing the homeless problem, but few seem to have asked a simple question: Where, exactly, are these people coming from?

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There is a reason for that. In 2020, the city-county Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) found that one-third of “unsheltered Angelenos” became homeless outside of Los Angeles County. In 2024, the nonprofit RAND Corporation reported that 41 percent of the street homeless surveyed across three Los Angeles neighborhoods—Hollywood, Venice, and Skid Row—were “last housed” somewhere other than L.A. County.

Both reports cut against the narrative of left-wing politicians and activists, who insist that any claim that out-of-town homeless are flooding L.A. is a “myth.” In 2021, LAHSA stopped publishing previous-location data. In 2025, RAND removed the metric from the organization’s annual report and included it in a separate, lesser-read “annex.”

We asked LAHSA and RAND why they buried this data. LAHSA said it stopped publishing previous-location figures because of respondents’ “varying interpretations of the question.” RAND claimed that it moved the data to the annex “due to a need to save costs on publishing,” and confirmed that the data would remain there in the group’s upcoming report.

Another reason might be that the massive migration of homeless people to Los Angeles violates progressive pieties—and these groups would rather suppress those data than face their implications. (In response to this accusation, LAHSA said it stopped publishing results for the previous-location question “solely due to the statistical uncertainty,” but noted that the “question is in the queue for revision and validation”; RAND again cited “scarce resources” and the need to “streamline the main report.”)

It suggests homeless individuals see Los Angeles as a refuge of sorts, and it’s no wonder why.

As part of her re-election platform, Mayor Karen Bass wants to get them all fitted for cosmetic dentures:

Karen Bass defends her comments about getting taxpayer-funded new teeth for homeless meth addicts in LA:

“We already pay for it!” pic.twitter.com/l1B0Ttygpr

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) May 17, 2026

But the data showing just how many of LA’s homeless are coming from elsewhere was enough to reignite social media backlash against the city’s current leadership:

Why not? Los Angeles lays out the welcome mat for homeless from any land and gives them what they need to survive plus the best medical services, it's a migration magnet.

— Artist in Los Angeles. (@RisaSher) May 19, 2026

Well, with free illegal drugs, free paraphernalia, free food, free camping wherever u want, no enforcement against open use or dealing and sales, what’d u expect?

— Artiste DuBois (@artiste_dubois) May 19, 2026

In the California Post‘s editorial endorsing independent mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt, the homelessness issue was a central theme:

Pragmatic Pratt says he will crack down on petty crime.

He says he will overhaul the city’s emergency-response systems so that nothing like the Palisades Fire can ever happen again.

He says he will enforce anti-camping ordinances to stop homeless people from putting up tents wherever they feel like it.

Mayor Bass has failed.

She was in Africa during the fire when the city needed her most. Instead of taking responsibility she blamed others. Deflection and deception is not leadership.

She has failed to meet her own goals for restoring the police force. She promised 9,500 LAPD officers. We are at around 8,600 and falling.

And while Bass may claim she achieved some modest reductions in the homeless population — this came at a massive cost.

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The city spent nearly a billion dollars last year on homelessness, rather than addressing underlying causes like drug abuse and mental illness. The mayor’s “Inside Safe” program, which moves homeless people into hotel and motel rooms, cost an average of $82,421 per homeless person, per year — more than twice the cost of other temporary housing.

Here’s some additional commentary on the report:

🚨 JUST IN: It's been exposed that OVER HALF of Los Angeles' homeless population came from *out of town* and keep the NGO FRAUD COMPLEX running strong

Karen Bass is allowing them to LEECH off the taxpayer! Spencer Pratt must win to end the insanity.

RUFO: "We even found… pic.twitter.com/Iqo3laP4Fl

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) May 23, 2026