Fun With Numbers: Homelessness

A story in today's Commercial Appeal about the homeless in Memphis shows how figures for the number of homeless are juggled.

This year's count yielded fewer folks overall, from 268 last year to 199 this year - a 26 percent drop.

But, mere paragraphs later, we get this:

It's much easier to count the numbers flowing through the shelters, which are among some 150 local agencies that offer services to the homeless, mentally ill or addicted.

At any point in time in Shelby County last year, about 2,000 people were homeless - on the streets, in emergency shelters, jail, short-term mental health facilities or other in-between housing.

Oops! The count managed to miss 90% of the homeless.

That is, until you notice the weasel words in that second paragraph. What professional homeless advocates count includes folks who are living with relatives. For example, someone loses their apartment for whatever reason and moves in with a family member for the duration. That adds enough elasticity to the numbers to give them reason to stress how the "problem" isn't getting any better.

I can speak to the story's main point, though, that the real homeless are moving East. I talk with some of the homeless in my neighborhood, and know a good many more by sight. They talk about the police making an effort to move them out of the downtown because of all the revival going on. You can't have the homeless frightening off the tourists! All those people at the FedEx Forum, Beale Street, Main Street, etc. don't want to be hassled, and the City doesn't want them to have a bad opinion of our city because of them. So, push them along.

I've been seeing it for a while. More homeless moving in. Also, the downtown homeless, as I have seen and been told, are more aggressive and dangerous. They don't play. The "regulars" will work with the rest of us, not throwing trash from dumpsters into the parking lot, not being panhandlers, etc. The new guys from downtown don't care. You mess with them at your own peril.

It's an old story. You "solve" a problem for one area by moving it into a new area. It's just that my part of Midtown is catching it so that the "Manhattan on the Mississippi" types downtown don't have to have their pristine fantasy ruined by, well...reality. Downtown has a lot of very serious money behind it, and the City serves that money. The rest of us just bow down.