In 2024, the Santa Clarita Valley recorded an estimated 276 to 299 homeless individuals, according to the Los Angeles County Homeless Services Authority. The previous year’s count had recorded 287 individuals in 2023.
In order to gather such information each year, LAHSA coordinates a three-day effort across Los Angeles County to record a visual count of homeless individuals, with the assistance of volunteers across an estimated 150 deployment sites.
The SCV participated in the first day of the effort alongside the San Fernando Valley and metropolitan Los Angeles, according to LAHSA. The local count was hosted by LAHSA in collaboration with the city of Santa Clarita and the local nonprofit Bridge to Home.
According to Bridge to Home’s clinical supervisor and event coordinator, Tyson Pursley, a group of over 80 volunteers gathered at the Centre to receive their assigned locations and supplies. They then went out to document individuals sleeping in campers, tents, washes, and cars.
Volunteer Alyssa Yerga-Woolwine, a Canyon Country resident and social worker for North Hollywood-based nonprofit organization LA Family Housing, has volunteered several times in the past, she said. This year she was accompanied by her daughter.
“I think it’s very important (to do this) because it’s going to determine the funding that this area gets for homeless services,” Yerga- Woolwine said.
The data received from the point-in-time count will assist in better directing funding and resources to support the needs of the local homeless population, according to the organizers.
“People don’t want to know this, but a lot of homeless people are working full time,” Yerga- Woolwine said, when asked about misconceptions associated with the unhoused population. “A lot of them are just people who had a string of bad luck or an injury that kept them from working. I’ve had clients who were full-time nurses. I’ve had clients with master’s degrees. One client, the landlord sold the building, and then they gave her 30 days, and she couldn’t come up with the money for the next place.”
Chris Abbott, SCV resident for over three decades, was a first-time volunteer alongside Deanna King, who was in attendance for a second year. She was compelled to be of service through the annual count because she wanted insight to “what’s really out there in this community,” she said.
As someone who has seen the homeless population increase throughout the years, her growing concern was that “we cannot get together the will to actually care for people well enough to get them in homes,” she said. “Whether it’s mental health, physical health, lost a job, don’t have insurance … there are things that can be done.”
Ventura County resident and nursing student Marylin Perez, who works at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital, wasn’t previously aware a homeless count existed. Her goal for the night as she set out to assist on the count with her two friends was: transparency.
“The only thing we see is what’s on the news, and when you come to Santa Clarita you see nice homes, you see everything nice, (but) people realize, there’s actually homeless here. We just don’t see them,” she said.
In a followup phone call, Perez said she and her group of volunteers found one person living in a camper, and two homeless individuals spending time in a local grocery store in the Saugus area where they were assigned to conduct the count.
Each volunteer in their own words shared similar themes that they believed would result in long-term solutions for the increase in homelessness. Some ideas mentioned were health care, affordable housing, mental health resources, access to technology, and financial literacy classes to be implemented in schools.
Although the numbers of the local homeless population are not as high compared to other cities within L.A. County, “I think that that doesn’t mean that they’re not there,” said Yerga- Woolwine. “It just means maybe they’re better hidden.”
Results of this year’s homeless count are expected to be released to the public in late spring or early summer, according to LAHSA.
