Using the American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) Dashboard to Strengthen Policy, Programs, and Practice

Data is most powerful when it informs action. The AIAN People Experiencing Homelessness Dashboard was created to increase understanding, support advocacy, and improve outcomes for AIAN homelessness in LA County. For County agencies, service providers, funders, and Tribal partners, the dashboard offers a practical tool for translating data into policy, programs, and practice.

By bringing together data from Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s (LAHSA) annual Point-In-Time (PIT) homeless count, administrative systems, and U.S. Census sources, and by reflecting both AIAN-alone and multiracial AIAN identities, the dashboard establishes a stronger foundation for equity-focused decision-making. It enables users to move beyond high-level awareness toward targeted, responsive interventions.

Supporting Service Planning and Program Design

Service providers and system planners can use the dashboard to better understand how AIAN people interact with the homelessness response system. By examining differences across subpopulations, geographies, and system touchpoints, users can identify patterns that inform service planning.

Because the dashboard more accurately reflects lived experience by including multiracial AIAN identities, it reduces the risk of misinformed planning stemming from undercounting or misclassification of AIAN people.

Conducting Equity Assessments and Monitoring Progress

The dashboard supports ongoing efforts to serve AIAN communities by showing benchmarks for key homeless outcomes, including the prevalence of unsheltered homelessness, homelessness among vulnerable populations, and system throughput. It allows agencies and providers to ask critical questions over time:

• Is homelessness increasing or decreasing among AIAN people?
• Are rates of homelessness among AIAN increasing or decreasing?
• Which AIAN subpopulations have the worst outcomes related to homelessness?
• Which AIAN subpopulations face the greatest barriers to housing?
• Where can we scale positive outcomes?

This is especially important as Los Angeles County implements Measure A, the County’s recent homeless funding initiative. The dashboard provides a mechanism to track trends and outcomes over time for AIAN communities and to see if there are reductions in disproportionality within the system. Agencies can integrate equity monitoring into existing accountability frameworks rather than relying on new or separate reporting structures.

Translating Data into Action

The AIAN People Experiencing Homelessness Dashboard is designed to translate data into action, supporting informed decision-making, responsive service planning, and continuous equity assessment.

ARDI supports this work by helping County departments and partners use data to align decisions, monitor progress, and adjust strategies over time. By strengthening coordination and shared accountability across the homelessness response system, we help ensure that data informs practice.

We know that when data highlights the needs of AIAN communities, systems are better positioned to respond with urgency, accountability, and care. Using the dashboard, the County can strengthen its ability to improve outcomes for AIAN people experiencing homelessness.

The County’s Land Acknowledgment

The County of Los Angeles recognizes that we occupy land originally and still inhabited and cared for by the Tongva, Tataviam, Serrano, Kizh, and Chumash Peoples. We honor and pay respect to their elders and descendants past, present, and emerging as they continue their stewardship of these lands and waters. We acknowledge that settler colonization resulted in land seizure, disease, subjugation, slavery, relocation, broken promises, genocide, and multigenerational trauma. This acknowledgment demonstrates our responsibility and commitment to truth, healing, and reconciliation, and to elevating the stories, culture, and community of the original inhabitants of Los Angeles County. We are grateful to have the opportunity to live and work on these ancestral lands. We are dedicated to growing and sustaining relationships with Native peoples and local tribal governments, including (in no particular order) the:

• Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians
• Gabrielino Tongva Indians of California Tribal Council
• Gabrieleno/Tongva San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians
• Gabrieleño Band of Mission Indians – Kizh Nation
• Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation
• San Fernando Band of Mission Indians
• Coastal Band of Chumash Nation
• Gabrielino/Tongva Nation
• Gabrielino Tongva Tribe

We invite partners, County staff, and community members to explore the AIAN People Experiencing Homelessness Dashboard and use this data to inform more just, culturally grounded solutions.