More than 200,000 lost their homes in the L.A. County fires. For people already on the streets, the damage ran deeper

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Four recently published UCLA-led studies draw a direct line between climate disasters, housing instability and homelessness, with researchers pointing to the 2025 Los Angeles County wildfires as one of the starkest recent examples.In the case of the January 2025 fires, some 200,000 people lost their homes.“The wildfires were among the most devastating … urban wildfires in history, and as traumatic as they have been for those who lost their homes, those living on the street suffered as well,” Randall Kuhn, professor in the UCLA Fielding Department of Community Health Sciences and a co-author of three of the studies, said in a university news release accompanying the most recent one, which was published Thursday.Of the people experiencing homelessness in the affected communities who were surveyed in the study, more than three-quarters reported injuries or other major disruptions to their lives because of the fires.Those are the latest findings in a broader set of four recently published papers that contend that homelessness should be understood as more than just a chronic housing problem.

Indeed, Kuhn said the studies’ findings show how climate disasters and anti-homeless policies can compound each other.People who recently had been displaced were more likely to report wildfire effects, he said, and the fires then made them more vulnerable by damaging tents and destroying possessions.“Homelessness is both a disaster in itself, and a situation in which most every month welcomes the arrival of a new disaster,” Kuhn said.Smoke exposure during the fires also took a toll: 40% reported worsening respiratory symptoms, including coughing, shortness of breath and wheezing.

Kuhn said 31% of unsheltered respondents reported injuries, which were more common among people who were already dealing with other health problems.More than half of the respondents said it was harder to find...