Shocker: 1 In 50 Children In America Are Not Actually Homeless
During Obama’s recent prime time press conference he was told by a reporter named Kevin Chappell from Ebony magazine (how’d he get in a White House press conference?) that 1 in 50 of America’s children are homeless. Obama responded by saying that number was “unacceptable.” Unfortunately for both Obama and the liberal reporter, that figure is wildly inflated by an anti-homelessness advocacy group that is no doubt inflating numbers in the hopes that it will draw more funding from politicians like Obama.
Mickey Kaus explains:
Chappell’s question is based on this study by an anti-homelessness advocacy group with every incentive to maximize the estimate of the problem. 1) The report apparently counts all people who are “homeless” even one night over the course of a year. That’s very different from saying that one-in-50 are homeless at the same time—e.g., “now.” 2) More significantly, the report counts as “homeless” families who’ve “doubled up”—e.g., moved in with relatives—apparently on the grounds that while these children in these families do have a home, they don’t have “a home of their own.” That’s not what most people mean by homeless, and not the image Chappell conjures (tent cities, sleeping under bridges).
This is how liberalism works. Nobody wants to pay higher taxes to have more government in their lives, so there needs to be an excuse. And liberals love inventing excuses. Like, say, exaggerating homeless rates.
