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It felt a bit like driver’s ed, with the harsh fluorescent lights overhead and the disposable cups of industrial-grade coffee in our hands.
In a video playing at the front of the room, a pleasant voice explained how to identify a person experiencing homelessness: You simply remember, “A, B, C,” for appearance (layered clothing and disheveled hair, for instance), behavior (sleeping on the ground), and condition (refers to a vehicle, perhaps with its windows covered).
Around me, dozens of volunteers listened, just closely enough to get the idea.
It was Thursday night, in the basement of Echo Park United Methodist Church, and we were waiting to go out, clipboards in hand, to help perform the annual count of Los Angeles’s homeless population.
Last week, similar point-in-time counts of homeless populations took place around the state.
Like the census, the counts are federally mandated and imperfect, and the results help determine how and where money flows.
Gov. Gavin Newsom participated in the count in San Diego, where he lauded volunteers for “stepping up and being part of the solution.”
This year, the counts took place against the backdrop of a housing emergency that has reshaped life across the Golden State and dominated the attention of policymakers at every level.
In the Echo Park neighborhood of L.A., near where I live, tensions had been rising over an encampment in a grassy clearing on the northern edge of Echo Park Lake. Though city officials have said the area needs to be cleaned, residents and activists have said unpredictable sweeps and citations are really meant to push the unhoused out of a public space.
Some of the volunteers said they were planning to join residents of the encampment in a protest the next morning. The count, they said, was an important way of ensuring officials confront the full scope of homelessness in their communities.
More broadly, volunteers told me it was the magnitude of the crisis they saw every day that moved them to spend four hours of their evenings looking for people sleeping in alleys or doorways and counting tents.
Ceraun Loggins, 29, told me they moved from Washington, D.C., in April. They bike to work, and seeing the number of people living on the streets, they said, “was a punch to the gut.”
Joining the count seemed like a simple way to help.
“It’s like one of these invisible mechanisms,” they said. “You don’t think about how it has to happen.”
After the short video, there was a mildly chaotic shuffle as the volunteers broke into groups of two to four. Each team was assigned a census tract. Some were walkable. Some, tucked higher into the hills, required a car.
The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority gathers more specific demographic information about who is experiencing homelessness in a separate survey.
This time, though, we were told to count visually — not to engage.
I tagged along with a group of four, all in our 20s or 30s. We walked to our narrow rectangle tract, which was lined by quiet apartment buildings set back above the street.
We saw a woman rifle through a trash can before continuing down the sidewalk. She nodded at us and said something quietly as she passed. We nodded back but didn’t ask where she was headed.
A member of our group, Chloe English, 29, made a mark on the form.
“Well, we got a grand total of one,” she said at the end of our route. She paused. “It’s a nice thing we only encountered one.”
Of course, in another tract, that most likely would have been different.
Still, I was struck by how the task felt mundane, and enormous at the same time: There aren’t people living in their cars or sleeping outside on every block in L.A. County. But someone has to check every block to know.
On Sunday morning, I visited the encampment by the lake at the center of the protest. Residents sat outside their tents and chatted.
I asked Jasmine Martinez, a 33-year-old Angeleno who said she’s lived in the camp for about four months, whether she’d heard anything about the point-in-time count. She hadn’t.
Ms. Martinez said she had been spending her time struggling to navigate the labyrinth of services available to people experiencing homelessness. She was seeking therapy and trying to access housing vouchers.
In the meantime, she said, she felt safe in the park — safer than she did on Skid Row or in shelters.
“Here, we have a family,” she said. “A lot of us are growing up on our own.”
Here’s what else we’re following
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San Francisco’s public works director, Mohammed Nuru, has been accused of bribery and corruption in a number of alleged schemes, including one in which federal authorities say he steered contracts for bathroom trailers and shelters for the homeless to an associate. [Mission Local]
Also, Mr. Nuru was called “Mr. Clean,” a man whom four San Francisco mayors, including London Breed, could rely on to clean up messes quickly and without question. But there were bright red flags over the decades. [The San Francisco Chronicle]
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A 13-year-old fan took a blurry selfie with Kobe Bryant at the Mamba Sports Academy on Saturday afternoon. It may have been the last picture taken of one of the world’s most famous athletes. [The New York Times]
Here are the latest updates on the investigation into the crash. [The New York Times]
And here’s a look at how brands are navigating uncharted territory in marking his death. [The New York Times]
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A chartered plane leaving the center of China’s coronavirus outbreak was expected to land at March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, on Wednesday. The plane’s 200 passengers include State Department officials and other Americans living in Wuhan, officials said. [The New York Times]
Also, here’s what travelers need to know. [The New York Times]
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After almost three years without a contract, the bargaining team for about 17,000 health care workers reached a tentative deal with the University of California, ending one of the institution’s longest-running labor disputes. [The Sacramento Bee]
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Apple’s profit grew for the first time in a year with the help of an old friend: the iPhone. [The New York Times]
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A stretch of San Francisco’s Market Street is set to officially go car-free starting this morning. Here are the answers to seven questions about the change. [ABC7]
Reading fashion
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The Los Angeles-raised pop star Billie Eilish is a style icon. Here’s what her look signals about Gen Z and shifting femininity. [The New York Times]
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Thinking about watching Gwyneth Paltrow’s new Goop Netflix show? Depending on how you feel about what is essentially soulful sponcon, you might like it. You also might not. At all. [The New Yorker]
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If you missed it, here’s how an artist born in New Zealand combined Patagonia vests and Margaret Thatcher to create a visual treatise on inequality and global capitalism now on display in a San Francisco gallery. [The New York Times]
California Today goes live at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes.com. Were you forwarded this email? Sign up for California Today here.
Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, graduated from U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter, @jillcowan.
California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.
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