‘How Many Homeless?’
The Kondratas article on the numbers game in counting the homeless does a subtle disservice to us all. Though well-reasoned, the author ignores fundamental issues involved in the absurd preoccupation with numbers that is forced upon all of us involved in determining and implementing social policy in this country.
Last year, while working on a research on homelessness, my colleagues and I were faced with the same dilemma discussed by Kondratas, namely arriving at an accurate local and national estimate of the extent of this problem defined in numerical terms. In so doing, we encountered varied estimates including that of Snyder’s group. But we also examined the issue itself. Why was it so necessary to provide such an exact count?
Traditionally, American social policy suffers from the lack of long-range planning and instead relies on a “Band-Aid” philosophy that requires action only when the natural “market forces” fail in some way. The assumption is that our economic and political systems will naturally provide for everyone if they do their part and participate. Consequently, individual “failures” (i.e., joblessness, instability, etc.) are seen as the fault of the individual.
Only when large numbers of people become affected by a similar circumstance does our mainstream culture begin to perceive that factors beyond the individual are involved and that corrective government action is needed (i.e., the Great Depression).
Thus arises the necessity to prove that a “real” problem exists (and, therefore, action must be taken) by counting the numbers that are affected. But one should point out (as Kondratas fails to do) that this whole counting process is a direct result of an essentially blind social policy in this country. It is a social policy that substantially fails to see that the causes of homelessness are structural and are in fact caused by its policies and institutions and not by its individuals.
But mostly it is a social policy that hardly deserves to be called a policy. It lacks mission and purpose beyond the desire to “leave well enough alone.” It makes little or no provision for prevention and social/individual well-being because it erroneously assumes that all is well unless grudgingly proven otherwise.
If our government policy truly accepted a commitment to the social well-being of all its members we would not be forced to waste so much valuable time counting problems. Instead of only jumping into the raging river to rescue those who are about to drown, we could go upstream and help to prevent those people from falling into the river in the first place.
DAVID C. CHRISTIANSEN
Los Angeles
