From Visibility to Accountability: Why Accurate AIAN Data Matters for Addressing Homelessness in Los Angeles County

Why Accurate American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) Data Matters for Addressing Homelessness in Los Angeles County

At CEO-ARDI, equity begins with visibility. When communities are not fully considered in policy discussions, inequities are easier to overlook and harder to address. While data cannot tell the whole story, it often shapes how problems are defined, which solutions are prioritized, and where resources are directed. When data is incomplete or misrepresents lived experience, systems risk reinforcing the very disparities they aim to solve.

For American Indian/Alaska Native (AIAN) communities in Los Angeles County, invisibility in homelessness has been a long-standing barrier to achieving equality. The launch of the AIAN People Experiencing Homelessness Dashboard represents an intentional step toward addressing a key need: elevating the visibility of this community and the disparities experienced in housing and homelessness. It reflects years of advocacy, partnership, and community leadership, calling for accurate, inclusive, and usable data and stories to inform the delivery of programs and services.

This dashboard is not just a collection of charts and tables. It is a tool designed to support transparency, inform decision-making, and strengthen accountability within the County’s homelessness response system.

AIAN Communities, Homelessness, and the Importance of Being Counted

Los Angeles County is home to the largest urban AIAN population in the United States. More than 327,000 AIAN residents live across the region, representing over 200 Tribal Nations, including members of local tribes whose homelands encompass what is now Los Angeles County, as well as individuals and families who arrived here through historic displacement, federal relocation policies, and migration.

Despite this deep presence, AIAN communities have often been rendered invisible in public systems and data. When people are not accurately counted, disparities are easier to overlook and harder to address, limiting the County’s ability to fully understand need and respond equitably.

Homelessness is one area where the invisibility of AIAN communities has had particularly serious consequences. Los Angeles County is home to the largest AIAN population in the United States, with 326,810 residents representing 3.3 percent of the County’s population (2020 U.S. Census). Yet AIAN people are disproportionately represented among individuals experiencing homelessness. The most recent Homeless Point-in-Time count (2025) estimates that 3.6 percent of people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles County identify as AIAN, and data show that AIAN communities experienced the largest increase in homelessness between 2022 and 2023.

Because most AIAN residents identify as multiracial or multi-ethnic, how data is collected matters. The AIAN People Experiencing Homelessness Dashboard intentionally includes both AIAN-alone and multiracial AIAN identities to prevent misclassification and data erasure. By bringing together Point-in-Time, administrative, and Census data, the dashboard offers a clearer picture of how homelessness affects AIAN communities and supports Tribes, Native-led organizations, County departments, service providers, and advocates in identifying gaps and strengthening accountability.

Tribal Nations and Native-led organizations have long raised concerns that AIAN homelessness was not being fully captured in County data, particularly due to how race and ethnic identity are defined and recorded. While only a small portion of the County’s AIAN population identifies as AIAN alone, many identify as multiracial or multi-ethnic. When data systems rely on narrow classifications, AIAN people are frequently excluded, resulting in data erasure that obscures disparities and weakens accountability.

The AIAN People Experiencing Homelessness Dashboard was designed to respond to these concerns. By including both AIAN-alone and multiracial AIAN identities, the dashboard reflects lived experience and strengthens accuracy. Inclusive, disaggregated data is foundational to equity. Without it, systems cannot clearly identify disparities or assess whether efforts to reduce inequity are making a meaningful difference.

Introducing the AIAN People Experiencing Homelessness Dashboard

The AIAN People Experiencing Homelessness Dashboard brings together data from multiple sources, including Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA)’s annual Point-In-Time homeless count, administrative datasets, and U.S. Census data. Together, these sources provide a more comprehensive picture of how AIAN people experience homelessness across Los Angeles County.

The dashboard allows residents to explore:

Importantly, the dashboard establishes a reference point that enables the ability to track progress, identify gaps, and assess whether systems are disproportionately reducing homelessness.

At ARDI, we view this dashboard as a practical tool to enable County departments, community-based organizations, philanthropy, and others to design programs based on the needs of our AIAN residents.  It can also enable support advocates, service providers, funders, County departments, and Tribal partners to make informed decisions grounded in accurate, disaggregated data.

Our role is to advance equity by strengthening the County’s understanding of and response to disparities.  To do this, we work across departments and alongside community partners to ensure that data is inclusive, reliable, and used to support accountability. The AIAN People Experiencing Homelessness Dashboard reflects this role. It responds to long-standing advocacy for better AIAN data and provides a shared foundation for transparency, learning, and continuous improvement across the County’s homelessness response system.

Measure A and the Importance of Accountability

Measure A was approved by voters in Los Angeles County in November 2024, establishing a voter-mandated, long-term funding source dedicated to preventing and reducing homelessness and expanding access to affordable housing. With Measure A being passed by the public, the County is legally required to use the funds for the purposes outlined in the ordinance and to meet specific transparency, reporting, and accountability requirements.

Measure A funds a wide range of strategies, including homelessness prevention, interim and permanent housing, mental health and substance use treatment, outreach, and affordable housing production and preservation. The ordinance also establishes a robust accountability framework. It requires clear goals, consistent performance metrics, public reporting, independent audits, and regular evaluation to assess whether investments are reducing homelessness and addressing inequities over time. Oversight responsibilities are shared among County departments, the Board of Supervisors, and designated oversight bodies, with the authority to redirect funding if outcomes are not being met.

To fulfill that commitment, the County must be able to answer fundamental questions:

• Which communities are most impacted by homelessness?
• How are Measure A investments reaching those communities?
• Are disparities decreasing over time?

Measure A explicitly calls for using data and an equity lens to evaluate outcomes, including establishing baseline demographic data to track whether homelessness and housing investments are reducing disparities over time. For AIAN communities, this requires data that reflects lived realities and prevents erasure. With inclusive, disaggregated data, we can better assess whether Measure A-funded programs are equitably serving Native communities and improving outcomes.

The AIAN People Experiencing Homelessness Dashboard helps address this gap by providing a clearer, more accurate picture of AIAN homelessness and system interaction across the County. By aligning this data with Measure A’s accountability framework, the County is better positioned to monitor progress, identify gaps, and course-correct when inequities persist.

Data as a Tool for Equity and System Improvement

At CEO-ARDI, we do not view data as neutral. Data reflects choices about what is measured, whose experiences are centered, and how information is used. When designed thoughtfully, data can be a powerful tool for equity and system improvement.

The AIAN People Experiencing Homelessness Dashboard is intended to support data advocacy by increasing the visibility, usability, and accuracy of AIAN homelessness data. It helps move conversations beyond whether disparities exist to how systems can respond more effectively.

By making this information accessible, the dashboard supports:

Centering Native Stakeholder Voices

This dashboard did not emerge in isolation. It reflects years of leadership and advocacy by Tribal Nations and Native-led organizations who have consistently called for better data and more responsive systems.

These partners emphasized that data must be inclusive, culturally grounded, and aligned with community priorities. Their input shaped both the dashboard’s content and purpose. This partnership reinforces a core principle of ARDI’s work: data about communities should serve those communities.

By centering Native leadership, the dashboard strengthens trust and ensures that data supports, rather than replaces, community-driven solutions.

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.