Latest Pajamas Media Post (’Cooking the Books on Homelessness Stats’) Is Up
It’s here, with a good tease question:
Are there really 3 million Americans wandering the streets?
As you might guess, it’s not even close.
I will post the column here at BizzyBlog Saturday morning (link won’t work until then) under the title “SF Report Unmasks Overhyped Nationwide Homeless Numbers.”
My comment didn’t show up on your other post, so I will ask it here. Are people who camp in the national, state and county parks using RV, trailer, pop up camper or tent considered homeless since they are “Of no fixed address”? The reason I ask is here in Florida, a lot of people move down after Labor Day and camp out all winter. The parks are literally full with long term migratory campers who don’t have another residence.
Since a lot of Seniors do their tour of the country using RVs for a year or two, in technicality, they are “of no fixed address” but they are on extended vacation in a sense. So it seems to me, homelessness has to be better defined than not having a house or apartment or living in a trailer park or in a boat. The definition of homelessness should be strictly those who can not afford conventionial shelter whether owned, leased or rented. I would submit living in a “shelter” should have it’s own category as unable to afford a lease, rent or own so as to collect a meaningful statistic. Once having identified who does and does not have shelter, one must reasonably attempt to define why they don’t. Each type of person has unique solutions to their problem. Like some of the commentors in the Pajamas site indicated some people are without shelter by choice, by drug addition or mental illness. Going homeless like hunger is really a very rare occurrance in this country since there are so many options for living accommodations. The real issue is one of people availing themselves of opportunity. So in any study of homelessness if you don’t ask the question what the person’s plans, if they intend to increase their standard of living or just live on hand outs, then quite frankly the study is meaningless and subject to misintrepation based on the readers specific world view. Those stats presented via the media are pretty much meaningless since their value is for propaganda only based on the faulty assumption that everyone not owning, renting or leasing is homeless is there because of no choice of their own.
Comment by dscott — July 25, 2008 @ 1:54 pm
#1, if you’re referring to the PJM column, they moderate comments, and they’re sometimes slower than me to get to them (if that’s possible).
The phenomenon of decently well-off seniors living out of RVs with a PO box address is one I’ve been aware of. There is little doubt that there are attempts to play with the definition. I remember reading once that there was an attempt to call member of divorced or divorcing couples who moved back in with mom and dad “homeless,” and also graduated-from-college kids who hadn’t found a place to live yet, or weren’t even really looking. It’s madness.
Homelessness was not an issue until the media and activists trumped it up against Reagan in the early-mid 1980s. I remember seeing the permanent homeless village that was set up in DC’s Lafayette Park, and wondering what kind of **** you have to be to spend day after day protesting about something you supposedly feel so strongly about instead of doing something.
Comment by TBlumer — July 25, 2008 @ 5:01 pm