Homeless Paradox - Aid Increases Numbers of Homeless

Check out this story from Kansas.

There were at least 52 homeless people in Hutchinson or Reno County on Jan. 29, including 20 children, a "point-in-time" count found.

The real number of homeless here, however, may be closer to 200, state homeless experts say, based on a formula developed from national homelessness studies.

So, apparently the national formula is "multiply actual count by four."

Recognizing that vagrants are difficult to tally completely, it's understandable that advocates would want to adjust the actual numbers upward to reflect people not found. Nonetheless, I question the justification for a blanket multiplier of four.

More troubling, though, is the fact that the census of homeless people is performed largely by the people who benefit from having higher numbers -- the homeless advocates. I don't mean to impugn any one individual nor any group. But evidence indicates that the number of homeless people is likely to be grossly exaggerated when the homeless advocates do the counting.

To digress a moment, imagine candidates for political office being allowed without oversight to count votes cast in their elections. Now, imagine that the winning candidates are pledged part of a billion-dollar windfall from American taxpayers. Okay, see if you can conjure up a dream sequence where none of the candidates attempted to stuff the ballot box. And it would be a dream. With a billion-dollar carrot dangling in front of them, many candidates would be more than tempted to cheat.

Logically, homeless advocates want their own counts to be as high as possible since billions of dollars are in play. About $1.4 billion is allocated for homeless programs this year alone. All that money is distributed based on counts (read: estimates) of homeless.

Furthermore, according to the 2000 Census, there were about 171,000 homeless in the United States. Since that time, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development "has awarded approximately $9 billion in funding to state and local communities to support the housing and service needs of homeless persons and families." Not surprisingly, the latest numbers of homeless are estimated to total at least 800,000.

One might conclude that throwing money at homeless populations increases the size of homeless populations. Alternatively, if one were to recalculate the 2000 Census with the aforementioned multiplication factor of four, the total would be approximately the latest numbers cited above -- i.e. 171,000, rounded off, times four equals about 800,000. This would give some validity to the seemingly arbitrary homeless multiplication factor, however, it would also seem to indicate that the numbers of homeless haven't changed between 2000 and 2007, despite spending $9 billion.

Therefore, simple arithmetic demonstrates that throwing money at the homeless problem has either 1) no impact on the actual number of homeless if the homeless multiplication factor is used, or 2) it actually causes increases in the numbers of homeless. A statistician could easily calculate the rate of homeless population growth per dollar spent on the various homeless programs.

In any event, the methodology being employed to end chronic homelessness ain't cuttin' it. By all appearances, the government is merely sudsidizing the indigent lifestyle.