It's a common phrase, numbers don't lie and well, they don't. They reveal to us truth in it's most simple form that can't be denied. Yasiin Bey, better known as Mos Def has a song called Mathematics (linked below). It talks about the African American population and many of the "numbers" associated with the people group. Through math Yasiin is able to paint a picture and be very empirical with the point he is trying to make. The approach of being mathematical and empirical wasn't always present in the scientific community. In 1863 a not so famous scientist, Charles Naudin, was actually able to conclude what Gregor Mendel (of Mendelian Genetics, papa) proved two years before Mendel. But there was a key difference in the approaches of these two scientists, mathematics. Mendel explained his observations by a theory, through numbers. Mathematical data that showed why his laws of segregation and independent assortment explained heredity. The answer to the question of why it is called Mendelian Genetics and not Naudin genetics lies in their approach and approach is what I want to talk to you about today.
What are the numbers associated with homelessness in America?
What are the numbers associated with homelessness in America?
- On a single night in 2012 there were 633,782 homeless people in the United States, including 394,379 who were homeless as individuals and 239,403 people who were homeless in families (1).
- 62% of those were single adults, 32% were families with children.
- 99,894 are chronically homeless (a 19.3% decline since 2007)
- 75,859 homeless in New York City alone (2).
There are many other numbers that you yourself can check out, this is just a snapshot.
What do we do with these numbers? Sure they are big, but in reality what are we comparing it to? I'll tell you, the relative number that I compare these thousands with is the ideal number of people experiencing homelessness, 0. With that in mind, not ignoring the progress we've made, we still got a lot of work to do.
Like Mendel, I believe the approach in which we take is essential to not only understanding the problem, but fixing it. It requires physicians, scientists, social workers, psychologists, everyone working on this to be systematic and pragmatic with their approaches. What do I mean by that? Here is an example:
In my limited amount of experience and reading I have noticed a pattern in the approach taken. It takes the homeless population and looks at where they are currently at and what their needs are, independent of where they came from. Trying to treat the homeless population without looking at where they came from is bad science. After Mendel's observations he ran tests and saw the ratios between his pea plants, if he was to stop there his work would have never been published. He needed to take it one step further and that was to test his results in a series of cross tests that excluded any other variables that might be playing a role into the method of heredity. It is no different with the homeless population. How a person entered into homelessness, drug addiction and all the other issues associated is vital in figuring out a solution and how to care for them, we must single out the variables playing vital roles in the problem.
Well I'm 20 years and a few degrees too short to be "Mendelic" with my approach yet, but here is what I have concluded thus far. The lowest common denominator of homelessness is lack of love and support from family and friends.
I have heard it countless times,
"People are out there on the streets because of poor choices."
"Ish just happened to them"
"It was their choice"
"It's their fault"
Negative ghostrider, you have failure to launch with that theory. This idea is wrong for a few reasons.
- I have seen people close to me come so close to homelessness but not enter into it because of the support system around them.
- If it was truly about us making poor choices that caused us to be homeless.. well then, the entire human race would fall under that demographic.
No matter who it is, every time I talk with someone on the streets and listened to their story, sure there were some poor choices, maybe some unfortunate events, but one way or another, there was commonality in the distance between the person and their family/support system. As one of the two parties (the person on the street or their family/support) began to separate themselves from one another, homelessness would begin to approach.
For now, I am a Naudin. I think I have made some sort of finding that accurately describes a phenomenon, but I have yet to test cross it and show you it's true validity, give me 20 years for that. But what I want to leave you with is this: if we don't try and systematically understand the mechanisms controlling homelessness, we will always maintain some degree of it.
Next post we will take an in depth look at some of the different groups of this demographic, how they vary, and how that changes the way in which they are cared for. We will also up the ante on the nerdy science stuff.
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