Finding · updated August 5, 2026
What Los Angeles actually calls 311 about
Across 765,797 service requests, illegal dumping and graffiti are 51% of everything LA asks 311 to fix.
Los Angeles runs on 311 — the phone line, app, and website where Angelenos ask the city to fix something. We have logged every MyLA311 service request since April 7, 2026: 765,797 of them across 120 days. Sorted by volume, the city's workload is strikingly lopsided.
| 311 request type | requests | share |
|---|---|---|
| Information-Only | 184,011 | 24.0% |
| Item Pickups | 159,752 | 20.9% |
| Illegal Dumping Item Pickup | 156,035 | 20.4% |
| Graffiti Removal | 77,996 | 10.2% |
| Service Not Complete | 39,686 | 5.2% |
| Homeless Encampment | 31,300 | 4.1% |
| Street Pavement Issues | 13,330 | 1.7% |
| Dead Animal Removal | 12,213 | 1.6% |
| Dockless Mobility Enforcement | 8,230 | 1.1% |
| Streetlight Repair Services | 8,173 | 1.1% |
One story dominates: hauling away junk. The pickup and illegal-dumping categories together account for 315,790 requests, and graffiti removal another 77,996. Combined, illegal dumping and graffiti are 51% of every 311 request in LA — and 68% once you set aside the 184,011 information-only lookups that don't ask for any work. More than any pothole, streetlight, or encampment call, LA's 311 system is a machine for cleaning up after illegal dumping.
How this was computed
Counts are raw MyLA311 service requests (the city’s owncase_type labels) over Apr 7–Aug 5, 2026, straight from data.lacity.org. “Illegal dumping & graffiti” rolls up every type whose label contains “pickup”, “dumping”, or “graffiti”. Shares are of all 765,797 requests unless noted as of the 581,786 actionable (non-information) requests.