There was a more than 50 percent spike among Los Angeles County’s homeless population during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to recently released data, which found that it was mainly driven by overdoses—not COVID-19.
Los Angeles County, which has been dominated by Democratic executives and elected officials for years, said that between April 1, 2020, and March 31, 2021, some 1,988 overall deaths among the homeless were recorded. That’s up about 56 percent from 1,271 deaths during the same time period one year earlier, said a report from the LA Department of Public Health, dated April 22.
As a result, the county concluded that drug overdoses remained the top cause of death among homeless individuals during that timeframe. Overdose deaths also increased 78 percent “from the pre- to post-pandemic onset year,” the country wrote.
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