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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Sam Levin in Los Angeles and Will Craft in New York

Revealed: 300% surge in deaths of unhoused people in LA amid fentanyl and housing crises

A white woman with long blond hair wearing a backwards baseball cap sits amid drying bouquets of red and pink roses on a dirty sidewalk with graffiti on the walls behind her.
Rue Ryan, 32, puts together a memorial for her old friend in December 2022. Photograph: Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

More than 2,000 unhoused people died in Los Angeles in 2023, meaning an average of nearly six deaths a day of people living on the street or in shelters in the nation’s most populous county.

The numbers reveal an escalating humanitarian emergency as the housing crisis and drug addiction epidemic collide, with victims found in tents, encampments, vehicles, parks, alleys, vacant lots, underpasses, bus stops and train stations.

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