Combing the streets with L.A.’s homeless counters

Volunteers Omar Romero, left, and his brother Benjamin, make a three-hour trek to count the homeless in East Los Angeles on Tuesday night.

Volunteers drove and walked neighborhoods in Boyle Heights, Monterey Park and East Los Angeles on Tuesday night as part of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s 2016 homeless census.

Benjamin Romero, 18, left and his brother Omar, 32, were among 41 volunteers who showed up at the Centro Maravilla Service Center in East Los Angeles on Tuesday night to count the area’s homeless.

Omar Romero, left, was drawn to the 2016 homeless census by a blast email to his work. He recruited his younger brother, Benjamin, a student at East Los Angeles College, to join him.

Volunteer homeless counters gather Tuesday evening for a briefing in East Los Angeles. The volunteers broke up into teams in order to cover the most ground possible.

About 40 volunteers in East Los Angeles on Tuesday night take part in a homeless census, an effort to get a count of the number of homeless in Los Angeles County.