Nearly 1,500 Homeless Californians Died In Los Angeles From 'Preventable' Causes, Says Report

Nearly 1,500 homeless Californians died on the streets of Los Angeles during the COVID-19 pandemic, a new report revealed on Wednesday.

The report, produced by a research team at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), estimates that 1,493 Californians without housing died between March 2020 and July 2021 through the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, they say this number may not represent a complete figure.

Many of these deaths were not attributed to COVID-19 itself and a majority were younger people or from communities of color.

In the examined period, they determined that 35% were found dead at locations like sidewalks or other public locations and their average age was 47. Black Americans made up 25% of these deaths despite only being 8% of the county's population.

Former Mayor Eric Garcetti and state officials enacted policies designed to take homeless people off the street by placing them in hotels or transitional housing. However, The Guardian reports that only a fraction of the homeless population received the help they needed.

Even for those who received some form of temporary housing, the researchers found 418 additional deaths in these locations. Homeless white Americans accounted for nearly half of all hotel deaths with women making up 30% of the total. Like those who perished on the streets, the age of the deceased trended younger at 44 years of age.

COVID-19 did not make up a bulk of the deaths examined. In the case of those who died away from shelters, nearly 40% were the result of a drug or alcohol overdose and about 60% of those who died in a temporary hotel were the result of overdoses.

Chloe Rosenstock, co-author of the report and an organizer with Street Watch L.A, wrote on Twitter that these deaths were preventable and can be attributed directly to a failure by the state to protect them.

"If we continue to ignore these deaths, we continue to let state violence and negligence kill poor and unhoused people," wrote Rosenstock. "These deaths are preventable."

As of Dec. 1, California has seen 73,822 deaths as a result of COVID-19 and over 4.8 million cases since the start of the pandemic. Of these deaths, 26,913 took place in Los Angeles County, according to the California Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.