Monrovia has 62 people experiencing homelessness — down 11% from last year, according to preliminary data released late Friday by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. But city staff believes the number is even smaller.
“The numbers that the county reported deviate from what we counted,” Tina Cherry, community services director for Monrovia, said. Monrovia’s 25 volunteers identified 52 homeless incidents during the count, she added.
For one night in January, volunteers scoured Monrovia for people living in makeshift shelters, vans and unsheltered on the streets as part of the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count.
“We’ve been trying to better understand how county reported 62 — the methodology we used is what the county had given us,” Cherry said. “Regardless of the discrepancy, we’re encouraged by the decrease,” Cherry said.
Volunteers count people in homeless situations subjectively, Cherry said, but the county uses its own formulas to finalize the data.
Whatever the true number is, all of them are unsheltered. Of those counted, 17 people were found in makeshift shelters, 15 on the streets, 14 in RVs or campers, seven people in their cars, six in tents and three live in vans, the data show.
The 70 people experiencing homelessness counted last year were also all unsheltered, according to the authority.
“It’s not where we want our numbers to be, but we’re very pleased,” Mayor Tom Adams said.
Although none of the homeless population is in transitional shelter, those who have left the city seem to have found permanent homes instead of finding temporary shelter or migrating elsewhere, according to Adams.
The decrease “reflects how seriously we take this and how much effort our homeless team has put into housing” those experiencing homelessness, Adams said. “We pull out all the stops to make sure everybody has a home.”
Monrovia’s Community Active Policing Team housed more than a dozen people in the past 1 1/2 years, Cherry said. In the past year, the city’s Housing Displacement Response Plan kept 15 families and three seniors in their homes and allowed 20 youth to continue living within their neighborhoods, Cherry said.
The news is not as good for the entire region.
Homelessness in the San Gabriel Valley grew by 24% this year, according to data released by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority on June 4.
The count found homelessness had increased 12% across Los Angeles County, excluding Pasadena and Long Beach, which conduct their own independent counts.
This year’s count tallied 58,938 homeless people across the county, up from 52,765 in 2018.
In the San Gabriel Valley, last year’s count count showed 3,605 people homeless in the area, while this year’s found 4,479.
“The real issue here is the lack of affordable housing and the number of people becoming homeless — you can take them off the streets and get them housed, but then you have so many people taking their places,” Betty McWilliams, director of the Foothill Unity Center in Monrovia, said.
Last year, the Foothill Unity Center, a resource and direct service hub, housed 28 people experiencing homelessness along the foothills, McWilliams said.
“I don’t feel it can be city-specific because it’s wherever you can find affordable housing,” McWilliams said. People should remember that homelessness is based on the fact that those experiencing it are mobile, she added.
Although the state in 2012 removed city’s abilities to create low- to moderate-income housing themselves by dissolving redevelopment agencies, Adams said Monrovia still finds the means to house the homeless.
“Things are looking up. We have a multiprong attack on” homelessness,” Adams said. The city is “working toward as many solutions as we can and we’re consciously optimistic” about reducing homelessness in Monrovia, he added.
