A LANDMARK CRISIS

Joseph Fabozzi, 50, prepares to sleep under a lifeguard tower in Long Beach. He used to manage a restaurant, then worked as a live-in assisted care provider. That ended a year ago, and now he is one of thousands who live on the streets in L.A. County, side by side with the region’s landmarks and landscapes. Times staff photographer Luis Sinco documented some of the sights and stories behind the broad homelessness crisis.

Where do you take visitors in Los Angeles? Wherever you go, you’re almost sure to encounter homeless people.

They are fixtures at almost every landmark, part of the landscape that defines the urban expanse.

According to a Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority report, the homeless count now stands at more than 53,000 in L.A. County. A drive through downtown, Hollywood, Mid-City and the beach communities reveals the breadth of the problem.

Although homeless numbers dipped slightly this year, the small reduction follows a seven-year, 75% surge in people living in shelters or on the street, making certain parts of the region virtual tent cities.

“Good people, do you know what’s happening here in L.A.? We are driving past — oh my God — we are driving past homeless people and we’re not seeing them. When that happens, that is the end of our humanity,” an impassioned L.A. City Council President Herb Wesson said during a recent, raucous council meeting at City Hall.

Luis Sinco Los Angeles Times

DEANDRE TERRELL GAINES, 23, spends his days wandering between Venice Beach and the Santa Monica Pier. “I’m taking a year off,” Gaines said. He hopes to become a rapper or a producer of electronic dance music.

RUBY DUGGE

MARK AHVAKANA, 49, sits near the Santa Monica Pier as the sign blinks to life in the growing dusk. He’d woken up to find that someone had left a bag with a burger and French fries beside him. An Inuit, Ahvakana said he hoped to go home to Anchorage for the summer. “It’s nice there now,” he said. “Days are long and the weather is good.”

MAURICE MARSHALL, 29, wears a hat and coat he pulled from the trash. A Michael Jackson impersonator, he set up in front of the famed TCL Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard to do his best moonwalk for tourists. But he had no sound system and was having a hard time finding a rhythm. “It’s tough without music,” he said.