In 2025, LA County’s unhoused population decreased by 4%, marking the second year in a row the number of unhoused people in the region has dropped. Unsheltered individuals specifically — people living on sidewalks, in tents, or in vehicles — declined by 9.5% in the county compared to the prior year, a drop of 14% over the last two years, according to LAHSA’s 2025 count. That’s not a small statistical blip. It directly contradicts one of the most common things people believe: that nothing works, that the problem only ever gets worse, and that the people living through it are somehow beyond help.

Myths like that don’t just sit quietly in the background. They shape policy decisions, they shape how people treat someone sitting on a sidewalk, and — perhaps most quietly damaging of all — they shape whether someone in crisis feels safe enough to ask for help at all. Stereotypes are easier to believe than the truth. But the truth is what actually gets people housed. Let’s walk through five of the most persistent misconceptions, and what the evidence actually shows.

Myth #1: “They don’t want to work.”

The reality: Research on employment and housing instability in LA consistently finds that many people who’ve been unsheltered the longest express a strong desire to work — and identify the lack of stable housing, not a lack of motivation, as the primary barrier standing between them and steady employment.

Think through the actual logistics for a moment. Most job applications ask for an address. Many require a phone number where you can be reliably reached, or an email you can check daily. Encampment sweeps — which happen with little notice — can destroy the very documents someone needs to apply for work in the first place: a driver’s license, a Social Security card, a resume printed at a library the week before. There’s nowhere to store a change of clothes for an interview, nowhere to shower beforehand, no reliable way to keep a phone charged for a callback.

Now imagine job hunting with everything you own carried on your back, with no fixed address to write on a form, and no guarantee the few possessions you have will still be there tomorrow. The barrier isn’t willingness. It’s logistics that most housed people never have to think about.

Myth #2: “It’s only a substance use issue.”

The reality: Substance use is one factor among many — not the singular explanation people often assume it to be. Rising rents, medical debt, job loss, domestic violence, and wages that haven’t kept pace with housing costs all play a significant role in pushing people out of stable housing.

It’s also worth flipping the usual assumption about cause and effect. For many people, substance use isn’t what caused their housing loss — it’s a response to the trauma of losing housing, or to the trauma that preceded it. Losing your home, your stability, and your sense of safety all at once is the kind of event that can push anyone toward coping mechanisms they never needed before. Point-in-time surveys conducted by organizations like LAHSA consistently track a range of contributing causes, and economic hardship — not substance use — is the most commonly cited reason people end up without housing.

Myth #3: “It could never happen to someone like me.”

The reality: Most people entering housing instability were housed and working shortly before it happened. One lost paycheck, one unexpected medical bill, one rent increase they couldn’t absorb — that’s often the entire distance between stable and unstable.

Some of the fastest-growing groups losing housing in LA right now are seniors living on fixed incomes, veterans navigating a return to civilian life, and working families who simply can’t keep up with the pace of rising rent. These aren’t people who fit a stereotype. They’re people who, until recently, looked exactly like anyone reading this. This myth might be the most important one to let go of, because it’s the one that quietly turns “them” into “us” — and that shift in perspective is often what moves someone from judgment to action.

Myth #4: “There’s plenty of help available — they just refuse it.”

The reality: Shelter beds and services remain limited relative to actual need. Even with real, measurable progress — nearly 28,000 people placed into permanent housing contributed directly to LA’s recent declines — available capacity still doesn’t come close to meeting demand.

And even where help exists, real barriers stand between a person and accepting it. Many shelters split up families, separating parents from children or partners from each other. Most don’t allow pets, and for someone whose dog might be their only source of companionship and safety, that’s not a small ask. Storage limits mean people are told to give up the few possessions they have left. And group settings can raise legitimate safety concerns, especially for women, LGBTQ+ individuals, or anyone who has experienced violence in shared spaces before.

This is exactly the gap organizations like Midnight Mission exist to fill — meeting people where they actually are, rather than expecting them to fit into a system that wasn’t built with their specific circumstances in mind.

Myth #5: “Unhoused people are dangerous — a public safety threat.”

The reality: People without stable housing are far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators of it. Living outside strips away nearly every layer of protection most people take for granted, leaving people acutely vulnerable to assault, theft, and exploitation.

Fear here is often just unfamiliarity wearing a more socially acceptable mask. Studies and lived experience alike point to the same pattern: proximity and real contact — volunteering, a genuine conversation, simply treating someone as a neighbor rather than a threat — consistently reduce stigma far more effectively than avoidance ever does.

From Awareness to Action

None of these five myths hold up against the evidence. What does hold up is something less comfortable to sit with: the causes are systemic. Housing costs that have outpaced wages for years. Healthcare that bankrupts families over a single emergency. A shelter system stretched well past its capacity. These are policy failures and economic realities — not moral failings of the people living through them.

This is exactly the gap Midnight Mission works to close every day — through meals, recovery services, job training, and housing navigation that meet people exactly where they are, not where a stereotype assumes they should be. Learn more about our services or read some of the success stories from people who’ve come through our doors and rebuilt their lives.

If this piece shifted even one assumption you were carrying, consider taking the next step: volunteer your time, make a donation, or simply share this post. Narratives shift one conversation at a time — and every one of those conversations starts with the truth instead of the myth.