Homelessness Fact of the Day
Skid Row, Los Angeles (cc photo by ikkoskinen)
Here is something I did not know: “20 percent of all homeless people live in three cities: Los Angeles, New York and Detroit.”
That seems like an extraordinary level of concentration. And it’s interesting that the three don’t make a set. Los Angeles and New York are the biggest cities and ought to go alongside places like Chicago or Houston. And Detroit is very economically troubled and normally found alongside other similarly collapsing urban areas.
The article is a writeup of this report from HUD released last week. We also learn in the report that the nature of the homeless population varies widely from place to place. In Phoenix, the homeless are split about 50-50 between families and individuals while in Cleveland it’s 85 percent individuals and in New York it’s only 32 percent individuals.
16 Responses to “Homelessness Fact of the Day”
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July 12th, 2009 at 10:10 am
First Post!
July 12th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Seattle and San Francisco are probably high on the list too.
Detroit is surprising because it’s too cold to live outdoors in the winter months. New York is fairly cold too, though not to Detroit’s extent, but has an extensive shelter system.
July 12th, 2009 at 11:09 am
New York, LA and Detroit are home to eleven percent of the population, so our share of the homeless is roughly double the average. Detroit has about one percent of the population, so it’s clearly overburdened. Which cities aren’t pulling their weight?
July 12th, 2009 at 11:42 am
I guess I don’t see why this should be considered an extraordinary level of concentration.
If you assume that homeless are going to more likely congregate in urban environments, let’s take cities with a population of 200,000 or more as our arbitrary cut off for what we consider an urban environment, mainly because it makes my numbers look good. The combined populations of NYC, LA and Detroit make up 21% of the total populations of all cities of more than 200,000. So, the concentration of homeless is conceivably in line with populations in general.
Data for this calculation came from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population.
July 12th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
For wht it’s worth I used to work as a day laborer for a couple of temporary labor companys and many of my fellow day laborers were homeless.When i used to work at a day labor shop in D.C. they used to send the vans down to the homeless shelters every morning.Tracy Labor alone would pick up around 60 guys a day outside of Pierce Shelter.They were not the only company that sent vans there either.
In my experience many of the guys that I knew had drugs and alchohol problems.And some had just been released from prison. Very few were mentally ill.But you would not realise that these guys were homeless if you met them.Mentally ill people are very noticable which is why many people think that all homeless people are mentally ill.
My guess is that homelessness is very high in cities where there is high drug use.A high incarcaration rate might be an indicator as well.Guys that are in and out of jail a lot generally do not have stable lodging.
I am not judging or criticising anyone.I got along with my co workers and i hope that at least some of them have been able to turn their lives around.
But I do not think that you can have a discussion about homelessness without talking about drugs or prison.
I would also add that i do not mean to imply that all homeless people are drug addicts.Nor am I saying that we as a society should not help them.I just think that we can not help them if we just pretend that all of them are simply people that lost their jobs at the local factory.
July 12th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Wouldn’t Boston suffer from it’s small city limits versus its actual conurbation?
Similarly SF/Oakland/San Jose with the Bay Area?
July 12th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Detroit might really be in its own class when it comes to deteriorating cities. One of the things that is pretty specific to Detroit is that there are abandoned structures literally all over the city. It’ll be well-kept-house, well-kept-house, boarded-up-house, run-down-house, boarded-up-house, well-kept-house, boarded-up-house, block after block after block. So you could be homeless in Detroit and still have the run of a house or two.
July 12th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
As an aside, I agree if they are defining cities in terms of municipal boundaries, it throws everything off for comparative purposes because different central cities can have much different percentages of their urban area within their municipal boundary. Just looking at the data, I actually have no idea how the units are defined.
Anyway, if you look at the underlying data, New York and Los Angeles are WAY out ahead of every other city at about 50,000 and 69,000 respectively. Detroit is a distant third at around 18,000, although it remains true that is very high for a city of its size.
By the way, Las Vegas is also high for a city of its size, over 11,000.
July 12th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Where are the numbers for the categories of the homeless suggested by conservatives? Ronald Reagan pointed out that many people are homeless by choice. Like camping I guess. Rush likes to remind us of “human refuse”, a dehumanizing term that appeals to cold-hearted bastards.
July 12th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
It is important to remember the ways in which the homeless are counted which will give you a better idea of why 20% were found in these three cities. Homeless are counted by HUD as part of a general canvas. I knew people who were involved last year and they went out in early morning hours and counted those people they could find on the streets. I believe that added to this are homeless shelters. Cities such as New York and Los Angeles have higher concentration areas so the canvassers know exactly where to go to get a count on any given night. These cities also have a higher proportion of shelters (of course this is because they do have so many homeless, but nowhere near the 20% mark, and also because this is where the homeless problem first starting coming to fruition in the Reagan years they have the most advanced shelter system). My guess is there are some similar dynamics going on in Detroit, where the city government has pretty much given up and have admitted to a homeless problem.
Mid-level cities who want to avoid a reputation of having a large homeless population put much less effort to the shelter system and often because there is no real central area, the homeless are harder to count. Some other things to remember
Most families, if they are not in a shelter, have found some other way to stay off the streets, with family, friends, in their car, or squatting.
Many women, who are at greater risk at late night hours when the count is occurring, use whatever resources they have – such as survival sex – to get off the streets so there will be fewer on the streets to count.
Youth especially are also at greater risk, simply cannot survive in areas where homeless congregate, and use any possible options to get off the street. Also, most youth will attempt to avoid shelters at all costs.
In other words, the picture is far more complicated than this report suggests.
July 12th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
My eldest got busted for jaywalking the Drag on the UT campus. Seriously. He crossed with the light green but after the little walking signal had switched. He was handed a citation as he hit the sidewalk on the other side.
Jaywalking is a class c misdemeanor and he could have had a jury trial (again, seriously) but we settled up in the Austin Community Court. While he was in the court room with at least 20 others I read an interesting article posted on the bulletin board of waiting room.
It seems that community courts are a recent development in the effort to run the homeless out of urban areas. Austin rates high in the unfriendly to homeless metric it seems. Community courts enforce nuisance laws such as public intoxication, vagrancy and jaywalking in an effort to make life unpleasant for the homeless. They are unable to pay the very high fines ($200 if contested) and either spend time in jail or have to work unpaid community service.
These courts require money to operate. My son’s group in the court room was a mix of homeless men, business men in suits and college kids. The homeless cannot pay, but the others can. The month before a former city council person had hit and killed a jaywalking pedestrian, so that was the excuse for the fund raising effort.
Anyway, local attitudes towards the homeless and the existence (or not) of institutions such as a community court system go a long way to explaining the number of homeless in a given area.
July 12th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Are squatters classified as homeless? If that’s the case then I can see why Detroit is on the list, they have a massive amount of abandoned housing stock. If you live in an abandoned house with no power, heat, or running water you might be classified as homeless by HUD but it’s a different social problem than living under an underpass or in the streets.
July 12th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Re: Most families, if they are not in a shelter, have found some other way to stay off the streets, with family, friends, in their car, or squatting.
The social serbice system generally puts up families in “welfare motels”. Are these people included in a homelessness count?
July 12th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Regarding comment #10 by Wilbur
Wilbur
Great comment. You made many good points in your comment.I have always thought that while statistics are important , one should be wary of taking them completly at face value.
I sometimes wish that MR Yglesias would take some of the statistics he uses on his blog with a slight grain of salt.
This does not mean that they should be ignored.But too often people assume that polls ,surveys or studies are automaticly 100 percent true.This often happens here on this blog.
Often when the political left and right use statistics in an arguement, they both use statistics that contradict each other .But are both technically correct.
People should take in account that some people are hard to count and that some things are hard to measure.
It should also be kept in mind that when questioned, some people lie.Especially when questioned by someone who looks official.Many people are understandably wary of admiting drug use , to being an illegal immigrant , to how many people actually live in their home or to predjudices or racist feelings.People tend to lie about their income as well.
And of course some people may not fully understand the question.Sometimes surveys and polls ask confusing or misleading questions.
Once again Wilbur I enjoyed your informative comment.
Best regards to you Wilbur
July 12th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
THE GRAND PLAN!
(Insufficient Domestic Demand)
The Media Messiah Imperial President feels that the Empires Economic problems qualitatively resembles the crises which affected the Japanese and Southeast Asia in the post economic bubble of the early and late (1990s), where insufficient domestic demand failed to push their economy forward. And at the same time Clintons former Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin was leading a pro-market agenda, repealing the (1929), Depression- I, era, Glass-Steagall Act, which had separated commercial and investment banking, supported then by the now Messiah senior-most economic advisor, Larry Summers, an agenda among many partly to blame for the current Empire Economic problems
(Creating Debt Beyond Comprehension)
So, what do you do to overcome insufficient domestic demand and push, kick-start, the sagging domestic economy, the Empire, a country that has been and is living beyond its means and continues to do so, even during the current economic crisis. Print more money, based upon credit from (1) The Peoples Republic of China, (2) Japan, and (3) The Russian Federation, and (4) the at large International Community at large, which is basically borrowing on credit, with half used to finance the Empires normal budget, part to the credit card bank bailout to start with, the rest to finance government expenditures on a scale never before seen in the history of any government on the planet since the beginning of recorded history, creating debt beyond all comprehension.
(The New Empire Economic Plan)
The New Empire Economic Plan is to reassure the International Community not to panic and to convince them that the economic freefall has ended, the worst is over and the crisis is abating with each passing day. That the International Community and especially the major Empire treasury and bond holders should continue to purchase and support the Dollar for an unspecified period, at unlimited amounts, as the Empire reshapes itself from a Democratic-Capitalist Society into a Socialist Society, with more bio, civil-engineering, environmentally, export, software and, middle-class- orientation, And, with less energy-production, financial-engineering, income growth orientation.
(To Recap)
First be a Democratic Capitalist Economy, practicing financial engineering; kick-starting the economy based upon a consumption income growth-oriented society model with the object of then becoming a Socialist non-financial engineered, less-consumption-oriented society. And this is going to take how long and cost how much, as the Empire continues Wars of Markets and Resources around the globe on the International Communities Carte-Blanca Credit Card? That is The Grand Plan!
July 13th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
I don’t know about LA but in New York we have high levels of homelessness because the New York constitution among other provisions requires the state to “house the homeless.” If you’re poor and priced out of housing in New York city you can “go homeless” by registering yourself and any dependents as “homeless.”
This was not a problem until the price of housing shot up in the 1970’s. As long as NYC stays expensive, state-provided housing will be a viable alternative for truly poor families. Our latest right-wing administrations (Giuliani, Bloomberg) have nibbled around the edges of this by making life really difficult for the poor people who register themselves as “homeless” in the city, but as the city-provided alternatives are still better than the market rate for housing, lots of poor mothers are going to continue to rgister as “homeless.”