Capitol Strives to Define “Homeless”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/washington/16homeless.html?ref=us
NYTimes, 15 September, 2008
So the heated discussion of choice a few days ago in our nation’s capital was apparently how to define ‘homeless‘. For the last 20+ years, ‘homeless‘ meant “only people living on the streets or in shelters”. But given the high-and-getting-higher foreclosure and unemployment rates, the Hill is arguing whether or not to expand that definition.
New expansions of the existing definition under consideration are:
1) to include the ‘precariously housed’ (living with friends, couch-to-couch, day-to-day hotels, etc)
2) just to include the smaller number of people who have fled due to domestic violence
3) to include “only those forced to move three times in one year or twice in 21 days”
(Obviously we have some variance in specificity here.)
The definition is important because whoever qualifies as ‘homeless‘ is eligible for aid, shelter and housing assistance from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
That said, in a typical DC move, none of the bills have anything about increasing funding. The current budget ($1.7MM) can’t come close to providing enough/adequate resources for the people falling under the current definition of ‘homeless‘. So while expanding the definition seemingly demonstrates homeland concern and goodwill, instead of a semantic debate, they should be talking about actions/solutions to actually care for these people.
(And of course it is turning into a Democrat/Republican flame war. I would paraphrase but you know the drill…)
Two additional thoughts:
- I think I may have lived couch to couch at some point in my younger younger years. That definition might need some fine tuning to avoid dealing in every 22 year old in the country.
- I don’t miss DC at all.
Erin Knight Said,
September 17, 2008 @ 5:07 pm
(sorry, that grew longer than I intended…DC does that to me)
Nathaniel Wharton Said,
September 17, 2008 @ 11:10 pm
Making the problem of homelessness appear or disappear reminds me of the TV show, “The Wire,” whose creator, David Simon is an in-residence Journalist on campus. In the Wire, Simon speaks of how, “Juking the stats,” manipulating category definition for political reasons was an extremely common thread he found throughout his career as a journalist at the Baltimore Sun.
quote from the Wire:
“Juking the stats,” Prezboluski, a former cop, and teacher starts in response to seeing corruption in administering tests to students in an urban Baltimore public school. “Making robberies into larcenies. Making rapes disappear…Majors become colonels. I’ve been here before.”
James Tucker Said,
September 18, 2008 @ 11:37 am
In the House, Democratic leaders who pride themselves on their commitment to the poor find themselves arguing that there is simply too little money available to accommodate a broad expansion of the definition, and too little time left in the current Congress to accommodate any realistic expectation that new money can be added.
Some House Republicans, meanwhile, accuse the Democrats of turning their backs on hundreds of thousands of struggling families who are forced to move from couch to couch and from house to house to keep a roof over their heads.
The above quote from the article makes me think this is very much a political ploy leading up to this coming November instead of a genuine concern over the effects of the mortgage crisis. Not surprising at all.
INFO 202 Fall 08 Blog » On the Subject of Important Definitions - OR - Why Politics and Categorization Don’t Mix Said,
September 22, 2008 @ 3:55 pm
[...] In Erin Knight’s post, she talks about how the Capitol is trying to figure out how to redefine homelessness. This reminds me of a similar issue that I have encountered year after year while working for Contra Costa County. [...]