An article in this morning’s Los Angeles Times reports a large jump in Lancaster, California’s homeless population.  Reporter Gale Holland points out that Lancaster is the last stop on L.A.’s Metro Line, so it’s possible that L.A. authorities are giving the homeless a one-way ticket out of town.  On the other hand, the jump from 1,412 Lancaster homeless in 2011 to 6,957 in 2013 may be just a more thorough biennial count.  (Some counts don’t bother to look for people in cars, miss the ‘hidden homeless’, etc.)

Holland writes that local shelter operators see little evidence of dumping, and that most of Lancaster’s homeless population has local ties.  That’s the pattern our University of Redlands team found a few years ago, when we conducted a homeless survey: most local homeless were either long-term residents or had relatives in the area.

Read Holland’s article HERE.