Why homelessness has more than doubled in LA County’s once-affordable northern desert

When the results of Los Angeles County’s most recent homeless count showed the number of unhoused people holding steady, elected leaders celebrated. The news brought some relief after years of increases.

Lost amid the cheers were the much more dire numbers coming out of the Antelope Valley, where homelessness rose 42% in the last year alone.

Homelessness in L.A. County’s northern desert region has more than doubled since 2018, far outpacing other parts of the county.

What’s causing the increase? Service providers and housing advocates say this once-affordable oasis has itself become too expensive. Antelope Valley residents hanging onto cheap housing are now competing with an influx of people fleeing high rents in central L.A. County.

And in an area known for brutal summer heat, high winds and freezing winters, the vast majority of unhoused people in the Antelope Valley are unsheltered.

Eve Garrow, a policy analyst with the ACLU of Southern California who has studied homelessness in cities like Palmdale and Lancaster, as well as big unincorporated swaths of the Antelope Valley, said the main driver of homelessness here is no mystery.

“As rent becomes unaffordable, people are displaced,” Garrow said. “It's not rocket science.”

Drones: a new way to count the desert’s unhoused

Officials with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) say this year’s dramatic increase may in part be the result of better data collection. This year, for the first time, they used drones to get a more precise count of unhoused people living way out in the Mojave Desert.

L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents the Antelope Valley, told LAist in an email she was unsure if the numbers “reflect a net increase or if LAHSA’s innovative use of drones did a better job of counting. Regardless, we will use those results to draw down more federal and state funding so that we can deliver more local housing and shelter options.”

Other local government leaders insist the numbers are going up because larger cities are pushing unhoused people beyond their borders and into Antelope Valley.

It's a common claim for local politicians to make, but homelessness policy experts argue that’s unlikely. They say unhoused people tend to live close to where they were last housed. And those who spoke to LAist about their experiences had largely been renting in the area for years before they fell into homelessness.

He lost a life partner. Then he lost his housing

Before he entered a shelter and got help securing the keys to his own apartment in a Lancaster senior living complex, Jerome Hall spent two years in a tent.

“It was just rough for me,” he said. “Lots of times, I just wanted to give up. But I knew it wasn't the right thing to do.”

Hall, 61 and living with schizophrenia, lost his housing after his wife of 33 years died.

“When I met my wife, she was somebody I was comfortable around,” Hall said. “I was able to share things with her. She was able to share things with me. When she passed away, it felt like there was nothing else to live for. So I was just out on the street.”

Hall and his wife first came to Lancaster after getting priced out of the city of L.A. When they could no longer afford rent in South L.A., they packed up and moved to the San Fernando Valley.

“But then it started getting high,” Hall said. “So we decided to come out here where it was at least cheaper — something we could afford.”

Rent in Lancaster was cheaper. But the $1,200 monthly rent for a two-bedroom home still took more than half their income, considered a severe rent burden according to federal government standards.

After his wife died, Hall didn’t have enough Social Security disability income to cover the rent. His next move was to a vacant lot.

‘More affordable,’ but still out of reach for many

Luis Montes, the North County chief service officer for Mental Health America of Los Angeles , has been working in the Antelope Valley since 2010. He said Hall (who is now receiving services from Mental Health America of L.A.) has a story that’s become increasingly common.

“When I first moved out here, you could get an apartment for $600 or $700,” Montes said. “I don't think you can get anything under $2,000 now.”

The Antelope Valley has traditionally been a landing pad for people ejected from L.A. County’s pricier cities. But Montes says that landing pad is losing its cushion.

“Even though it's more affordable than the rest of the county, I don't think it's affordable at all,” he said.

Montes said his team is serving more parents with young kids. This year’s count shows that 18% of people experiencing homelessness in the Antelope Valley are part of a family with children, compared with 15% of unhoused people countywide.

Families struggle to find landlords willing to take them

Tammy, who did not want to use her full name due to privacy concerns, is currently living in a motel with her 18-year-old son.

She said they used to share a mobile home with her adult daughter. But after her daughter died, the property owner wanted the remaining tenants out, Tammy said. They hope to find permanent housing soon, but she knows her options are limited.

“They want you to have [an income of] three times the rent, good credit, no evictions,” Tammy said. “And if you don’t have all of that, you're not going to get in a place.”

People without housing in the Antelope Valley are also more likely to be unsheltered than their peers countywide. Living outside can be dangerous, even life-threatening, for the 83% of unhoused people living in tents, vehicles and other makeshift structures in a region where temperatures regularly climb above 100 degrees .

Unsheltered in an inhospitable landscape

Next to the train tracks running through Lancaster, dozens of people huddled inside their tents on a July afternoon, just trying to survive in 110-degree heat.

“I've always lived close to the train, but I never thought I’d live this close,” said Michael Vern Potts as a freight train rattled by, blaring its horn.

Potts grew up in Lancaster, but has been unhoused for the past 14 years. He said he tries to look out for people in the encampment, bringing them water or ice cream and seeing if they’re staying cool.

“See that gentleman passed out right over there?” Potts said, gesturing to a man slumped near a tent across the parking lot. “He’s been passed out for like two days. I wake him up like every four hours, check on him, make sure he's OK. Because I love the guy.”

Residents of encampments like these say they spend much of their time collecting water to stay hydrated throughout the day.

People need at least four gallons of water per day in emergency situations, according to the World Health Organization. But unhoused people in the Antelope Valley often lack easy access to running water — especially those living in broken-down RVs parked on desert scrubland.

Pushed beyond city limits

A 2021 report from the ACLU of Southern California found that policies to discourage encampments in the city of Lancaster have effectively “banished” people to unincorporated parts of the county. Once they relocate to these far-flung areas, unhoused people have to travel miles to replenish their water supplies, a trek that can cause heat stroke for those without a vehicle.

Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris , a Republican serving his sixth term in office, is unapologetic about his efforts to push people outside city limits.

“People who need help and want help, I want to help,” Parris said. “People who want to steal and rob and intimidate people into giving them money, I want to remove. And that's what we're doing.”

Parris believes bigger cities are “sending” their unhoused to the Antelope Valley, which he says receives far fewer resources to address homelessness than other parts of L.A. County. In reaction, he said in an interview with LAist that city officials are “going to start issuing gun permits at a rapid rate with priority for women.”

And it’s not the first time he’s encouraged Lancaster residents to arm themselves against what he describes as an “influx of thugs and drug addicts that we protect because they're homeless.”

Surveys show most unhoused people in the Antelope Valley do not have substance use disorders or serious mental illnesses. Almost half are women, a much higher percentage than in the county as a whole.

Few options for those left out of a hot housing market

Eve Garrow, the author of the ACLU report, said the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson gives cities like Lancaster more leeway to punish unhoused people.

“It gives local governments an additional tool in their tool belt with which to continue to harass unsheltered people,” Garrow said, “instead of providing them with the life-saving resources — including permanent supportive housing — they are going to require to get off the streets.”

Garrow said with lotteries for vouchers and years-long waitlists, subsidized housing isn’t available for most who need it. And local governments haven’t done much to increase the supply of affordable housing.

In the last six years, the Antelope Valley has only created about 300 permanent supportive housing units. Garrow says that’s nowhere near enough for the 6,672 people who lack housing in these often overlooked margins of L.A. County.

If you care about housing affordability

For people who live in L.A. County, the Board of Supervisors has the most direct impact on housing affordability in your neighborhood.

• Learn more about who influences local housing policy
  

The best way to keep tabs on your own local government is by attending public meetings for your city council or local boards. Here are a few tips to get you started.

• Find meeting schedules and agendas: City councils usually meet at least twice a month, although larger ones may meet weekly. Committees and boards tend to meet less often, typically once a month. You can find the schedule and meeting agenda on your local government’s website, or posted physically at your local city hall. Find more tips here .
  
  • Find Palmdale city council meetings and agendas
  • Find Lancaster city council meetings and agendas
  • Find L.A. County agendas and meeting dates F
  • ind L.A. City Council agendas and meeting dates
  • Find meetings for L.A. city boards and commissions
• Learn the jargon: Closed session, consent calendars and more! We have definitions for commonly used terms here .
• How to give public comment: Every public meeting allows community members to give comment, whether or not it’s about something on the agenda. The meeting agenda will have specific instructions for giving public comment. Review more details here .