LA Metro is celebrating a dramatic decline in the number of unhoused people counted across its bus and rail system, saying the figure has fallen 57% since 2024. But the headline number is a transit-specific snapshot, not proof that homelessness is falling everywhere in Los Angeles County.
Metro’s 2026 count estimated 395 to 517 people experiencing homelessness on the system, down from 631 to 684 in 2025 and 1,041 to 1,092 in 2024, according to Pasadena Now. The agency runs countywide buses and the A Line, formerly the Gold Line, which passes through Pasadena on its way across Los Angeles County.
The percentages are attention-grabbing, but they come from a one-night point-in-time count rather than a continuously updated census. Metro reports its results as a range because the estimate includes a statistical margin of error.
Metro Credits Outreach, Ambassadors And Coordinated Enforcement
Metro attributes the decline to an integrated public safety model that combines outreach and housing connections with law enforcement and security. The agency’s new Care-Based Services Division, launched in January, brought Metro ambassadors, its HOME homeless outreach program and community intervention specialists under one division, according to LA Metro.
The new structure is meant to match the response to the situation, with social-service and behavioral-health personnel handling crises when possible while police and security teams address safety threats. Metro says the approach is designed to make the system safer without treating every person experiencing homelessness as a criminal.
In fiscal year 2025-26, Metro’s outreach teams connected 354 people to permanent housing, while 62 volunteers—including outreach workers, Metro employees and riders—participated in the January count, Pasadena Now reported.
The Countywide Picture Is Much Less Clean
The broader regional numbers tell a more complicated story. Last week, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority said its 2026 count showed a 1.2% increase in homelessness across Los Angeles County, to an estimated 73,040 people, although that change was not considered statistically significant.
LAHSA also reported a 3.3% increase in unsheltered homelessness, bringing the countywide estimate to 49,002 people. The agency blamed a slowdown in permanent housing placements, reduced access to time-limited rental subsidies and continuing economic pressure, according to its 2026 count release.
The two sets of numbers are not apples-to-apples. Metro’s count focuses on stations, rights-of-way and parking lots, and those transit-specific results are not included in LAHSA’s published regional total, the transit agency said in its 2025 announcement.
Metro’s Transit Strategy Has Been Building For Years
The latest announcement extends a trend Metro began highlighting last year, when the agency reported a roughly 40% year-over-year decline in people counted on the system and said outreach teams had connected 2,709 people to interim or permanent housing during fiscal year 2025.
Metro’s effort dates back further than the latest counts. Hoodline’s earlier coverage detailed the board’s 2023 plan to coordinate Metro, LAHSA and service providers around homelessness on public transit.
What The 57% Figure Does And Does Not Show
The transit-specific drop is still a meaningful operational metric: fewer people were observed using Metro property as shelter during the annual count. But LAHSA’s latest results show why Metro’s progress cannot be treated as a countywide victory lap, especially while housing placements and rental assistance remain constrained.
For Pasadena riders, the A Line may feel the effects of Metro’s outreach and security changes directly, but the larger homelessness crisis will continue to be measured on streets, in shelters and in neighborhoods beyond the rail platforms. Metro says its model is working; the next test will be whether the reduction holds while the region tries to clear its housing bottleneck.
