LA Times: County Homeless Population Tops Two Kazillion, No Further Reporting Required
In a classic example of press release journalism, the Los Angeles Times announced this morning “County Homeless Number 90,000.” Why don’t we believe it?
1) The number is provided by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. Guess what key statistic drives their funding? On their own web site they say that the purpose of the count is to “increase public awareness of homelessness, help service providers better serve their clients, and increase funding for homeless services in our community.” The Times manages to ignore the agency’s self-interest in maximizing the number.
2) Taken on its face, does it seem possible that about one out of every 100 residents of LA County (population: 9.9m) is homeless at any given time? As the Times notes, “that means that on any given day, the number of homeless countywide almost equals the population of Santa Barbara.” For instance, does it sound right that Burbank (population 100,316) has a thousand homeless? Torrance 1,300? Or does the evidence of your own experience living in this city indicate that this number is much too high?
The San Diego Regional Task Force on Homelessness estimates it has 9,600 homeless at any given time out of a population of 2.93m. That’s one out of 305 residents, not LA County’s one out of 109.
3) The number of chronically homeless is reported to have jumped from about 7,500 under previous estimates to 35,000 now. No explanation is given for the fivefold increase. Like the overall total, this new number seem high. San Diego County estimates it has 1,400 chronic homeless out of 9,600 total — 15%. Even if we believed the 90,000 total homeless figure, using San Diego’s data we’d expect to find 13,500 chronically homeless in LA County (15% of 90,000) — not 35,000.
4) The definition of “homeless” itself is slippery: the Times says the head of Orange County’s homeless agency:
… was quick to add, however, that the HUD-ordered census may have missed large numbers of homeless people because it did not cover motels.”In Orange County a large percentage of our homeless people are the working poor who are in and out of motels,” Ropor said …
“Motels?” Sorry, but that’s not homeless. It may be “transiently housed” or “without long-term housing,” but it’s not on-the-streets homeless (see our post earlier today for more).
How to reconcile all this? Homeless advocates don’t want to try — they like the higher number. Mitchell Netburn, executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, is quoted as saying “People can no longer ignore the problem or say, ‘I don’t see that many homeless people, where are they?’ ”
But perhaps those people are right and the skewed numbers are wrong.
Technorati Tags: California, LA Times, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Times, Southern California
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June 16th, 2005 at 7:32 pm
They say Seattle’s first homeless man became so annoying the town took up a collection and bought him a one-way train ticket to Chicago.
Seattle is now a homeless paradise. We providing food, clothing, housing, medical help and every other kind of service except perhaps help with brushing their teeth. However, a guy’s gotta have spending money so we often have three or four to a block downtown. Interestingly, they don’t work weekends.
So if you’re missing three or four thousand in LA, don’t worry, they’ve just come up here for the summerr.