Over 1/4 of U.S. homeless are veteransWhy do I question it? That means one out of the four people I served with are on the street - I think I would have noticed. And just in case you are wondering, I'm not writing this from the homeless shelter.
I'll go out on a limb and state the number probably relies on dubious estimates or methods. I don't know yet just a hunch. I've downloaded the report and I'll check it out. I doubt the AP writer has done that much; I note most of her story was just lifted from the National Alliance to End Homelessness press release. It is not like I've seen critical thinking missing from a reprint of other advocacy group press releases.
I'll let you know what I find.
UPDATE: I see I'm not reading the headline correctly. The figure is 1/4 of the U.S. homeless are veterans. I misread that to be 1/4 of all veterans. Certainly a smaller number. In the words of Roseanne Roseannadanna: "Never Mind". My apologies to the AP reporter.
I'll still read the report anyway.
MORE: Don Surber does the math - "99.4% of us [i.e. Vets] have homes" and notes:
194,254 homeless vets are a problem. America is dealing with it.
The VA has a very serious program that is now in its 20th year. But AP reported the number of homeless vets has dropped only by 50,000 or so in that time.
The VA budget has nearly doubled on Bush’s watch. He sought $39.5 billion for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 (the Democratic Congress has failed to meet the Sept. 30 deadline for sending even one of the 13 appropriations bills to the president — but that is a whole ’nother story).
It is cynically dishonest for VA bureaucrats to trot out this 1-in-4 statistic to shake down even more money. It makes it seem as though 1-in-4 veterans are homeless, when we are not.
Originally posted in UNCoRRELATED Nov 8, 2007
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