1 in 50 American Children Experience Homelessness
From ChristianPost.com: "1 in 50 American Children Experience Homelessness."
One of every 50 American children experiences homelessness, according to a new report that says most states have inadequate plans to address the worsening and often-overlooked problem.
posted by Bill Blue at Tuesday, March 10, 2009
1 Comments:
Not to sound uncompassionate, but that 1 in 50 number the AP trumpets is bunk.
Over half (56%) of that number are sharing houses with other people because of hard times. By that concept, I was homeless as a child because we lived with my grandmother for a while.
7% more do have a home, but its a temporary place like a hotel, motel, trailer park, or campground. Probably not ideal, but not "homeless" as we'd think of it.
24% more live in shelters. That sounds like homelessness, until you realize the study conflates "emergency" and "transitional" shelters. Transitional shelters are in fact housing designed for resolving issues (domestic violence, drug use, etc.).
10% more are listed as "unknown/other," a category which includes "substandard housing." Again, far from ideal, but if you live in housing, how can you be homeless?
The real number of homeless children as most people would define "homeless" is somewhere between 0.06% and 0.026% (somewhere between one in every 400 and one in every 1667), not the 2% the story is trumpeting.
As I said, that number is still a tragedy. Given the economy, it's likely to grow. But the National Center on Family Homelessness is clearly being dishonest about the extent of the problem. Not only is such simply wrong, such deception can make the problem worse by inspiring cynicism. This is, unfortunately, common among non-profit advocacy groups looking for a government handout.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home