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Working yourself out of business is not working Wednesday, January, 27, 2010
Great Non-Profits Deserve A Great Rating System Wednesday, December, 16, 2009
Missing the Mark: Why Business-Mindedness Cannot Solve the Problems of the Non-Profit Sector Tuesday, December, 8, 2009
Too Many Non-Profits? Tuesday, December, 1, 2009
The Poverty Business Tuesday, November, 17, 2009
Poor By Design Monday, November, 16, 2009
The Poverty Landscape Wednesday, November, 11, 2009
We Need Inforum Thursday, November, 5, 2009
Effective Social Investing Wednesday, November, 4, 2009
Social Services Cause Homelessness
Friday, October, 30, 2009
No County For Homeless Men
[Update: Looks like the full 2009 LA County Homeless Count report is now available on the LAHSA website here, although it's still not listed in their "Full Reports" section]
Here in Los Angeles County, there is a big to-do over an announcement by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) that homelessness has decreased by 38% in the last two years. The county claims the statistic in part is evidence of the effective anti-homeless strategies they have spearheaded. Many non-profit homeless services providers argue the claim of a decrease in homelessness does not line up with the spike in demand they've seen for their services during this recession. So who's right? Has homelessness really decreased by 38% as the county claims?
Well, who knows? No one can know until the county makes the full 2009 homeless count report public. On their website, they post the 2005 and 2007 report, but only a summary of the 2009 findings. Why is it important that they publish the full 2009 report? I mean, they've already told us what they found, right?
They have told us what they found, a decrease in homelessness of 38% over a two-year period, but they haven't told us how they found it. Any serious research report includes an extensive "methods" section. The methods explain the steps you took to come to your conclusion. There are some who argue that the 38% decrease in homelessness that LAHSA boasts is, at least in part, due to changes in the way homelessness was counted in 2007 versus 2009. If that is the case, that means that at least some of the decline (and maybe all of it) is due to statistical manipulation, rather than poverty alleviation.
Now, I am not saying the claim of a decrease in homelessness by 38% is wrong or right (although I do have my personal suspicions). What I am saying is we can't know anything until the full report is made public. Personally, I think jumping out with a press release and an LA Times article headlining a decrease in homelessness without making the report available for public scrutiny is wrong. Statistics are powerful and can be a great tool in social services. But we have to be honest about the numbers we report. A big part of that is being transparent about how we arrive at our statistical claims.
So for now I will reserve judgment on trying to figure out where two out of five homeless people in LA County went. Instead I'll be hunting around for the 2009 report that makes said claim.
You're correct, L.A. County should have made the report public at the same time they issued the press release.
As you mentioned in one of your posts last week, quantitative data does have to go hand in hand with qualitative data.
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if there is a bit of "fuzzy math" going on here.
Posted 2009-10-30 18:22:19
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Body Found In A River Near Long Beach Friday, April 10, 2009
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