Homeless advocates are not thrilled with a new report by LA County that shows a 38% drop in the homeless population.
The surprise decrease reported by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority is inaccurate, critics say, and it could cost them valuable funding. Specifically, they point to a part of the survey that said the number of homeless family members was down from 16,000 in 2007 to about 5,000 this year, according to the LA Times.
Considering the tough recession, the findings caught many by surprise.
“We’ve been describing an overwhelming tsunami of families…There’s no way that anybody who works with families would agree with [those numbers],” Andy Bales, president of Union Rescue Mission, told the Times.
The census, conducted in January by more than 3,000 volunteers, was overseen by demographers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“Really, it’s a very small number of agencies who have raised a cry, and most of them are family providers. ...I think a lot of their hue and cry is anecdotally based, not data based," Michael Arnold, executive director of the Homeless Services Authority, told the Times.
Despite the outcry, homeless advocates say their donations haven't dropped since the report. But they worry it may create the perception that homelessness has been solved and in tough economic times, may donate much needed money to other causes.
