That effort was delayed in 2025 after the Los Angeles Homeless Service Authority (LAHSA) announced Tuesday that the Greater Los Angeles Homelessness Count has been postponed to February 18-20 due to impacts from the recent fires. Culver City, despite not being directly impacted by the fires, did the same to maintain the integrity and continuity of the count.
City spokesperson Dustin Klemann said Culver City will conduct its homelessness count on February 20, the same day that LAHSA will conduct its count in West Los Angeles.
Members of the Culver City Fire Department, Culver City Police Department, the city’s Housing and Human Services Department, and the Mobile Crisis Team will conduct this point-in-time count in the early morning hours, tracking where unhoused community members are during the time they are most likely resting.
According to Mayor Dan O’Brien, City Council members and members of the Advisory Committee on Housing and Homelessness are also allowed to help count the number of unhoused residents in the city over an approximately three-hour period.
The city initially declared a Local Emergency on Homelessness in January 2023 and has since made strides in decreasing the number of people living on Culver City streets.
As the city continues to promote service-based efforts to help unhoused individuals find a path to stabilizing their lives, such as the Mobile Crisis Team and Wellness Village Safe Sleep Site, the unsheltered homeless population continues to drop.
The 2024 count continued to show that optimistic trend, with an estimated 115 people experiencing homelessness on the streets in Culver City, down from 139 people in 2023 and 229 in 2022.
More unhoused residents were in shelters than on the street in last year’s count, with 164 unhoused residents in the city under official care compared to just 38 in 2023. These unhoused residents are provided a place to stay at places like the Wellness Village hosted in a parking lot starting in July 2023, the Project Homekey site opened at the former Deano’s and Sunburst Motels in October 2023, and Upward Bound House.
While Culver City‘s policy is to “lead with compassion” when working with people experiencing homelessness, there are regulations in place that members of the community have criticized that have also most likely contributed to the decreasing unhoused population in the public view.
several weeks after the emergency declaration – the city council approved Culver City Municipal Code 9.10.700 (Camping in Public Places) in a 3-2 vote, with then-councilmember O’Brien voting to approve along with councilmember Albert Vera and former councilmember Goran Eriksson. Current Vice Mayor Freddy Puza and councilmember Yasmine-Imani McMorrin were the dissenting votes.
This code makes it illegal to set up a tent or similar “camp facility” in most of the city. The areas in which “settling, fixing in place, setting up, storing, locating, or leaving behind” tents, huts, cots, beds, hammocks, or other temporary physical shelters are prohibited in Culver City include:
Public parks, as defined in Culver City Municipal Code Section 9.10.005
Public streets, public alleyways, public parking lots, public passageways, public rights-of-way, public sidewalks, publicly owned landscaped areas, parkways, medians, or greenbelts
Public educational institutions, including properties owned by the Culver City Unified School District
Properties owned, leased, or operated by other governmental entities located within the City
Other City-owned, leased, or operated properties or facilities
Any privately owned space that is required to be maintained as public open space pursuant to a City-issued entitlement or permit
Notably, the code outlines that small-scale sleeping furniture, such as blankets, pillows, and sleeping bags, are not considered camp facilities under the ordinance.
Councilmember Bubba Fish, who was Vice Chair of the Advisory Committee on Housing and Homelessness at the time, was among those who made public comments disapproving of the anti-camping policies.
Fish told Culver Crescent that the homeless count helps the city and its leadership understand its progress in fighting the homelessness crisis and reflect on neighbors suffering from decades of exclusionary housing policies. He participated in the 2019, 2022, and 2023 homeless counts and says that people need to continue to focus on the humanity of the unhoused.
“The only acceptable number of people forced to spend the night on our streets is zero,” Fish said.
Mayor O’Brien also spoke of the importance of information from the count to understanding the successes and failures of the city’s approach to tackling homelessness. He is particularly hopeful that the number of unhoused residents on the street is down, which would demonstrate that the city’s compassionate and service-focused programs are providing tangible results.
“It would be great to see,” O’Brien told Culver Crescent, “that Culver City provides the gateway for people to return to being independently housed.”