According to the federal government as defined by the McKinney-Vento Act, homeless is a person who "lacks a fixed, regular and adequate night-time residence .."And the residence the person does have is a publicly or privately run temporary shelter of some sort.
Yet, Arizona's Department of Economic Security (DES) prefers to further narrow the number of people who it's willing to recognize as homeless:
The homeless are divided into eight categories by DES: Elderly persons; Chronically homeless; Families with children; Youth; Veterans; Victims of domestic violence; People with addictions, who make up nearly 50 percent of all homeless; People with mental illness.
In other words, if you are homeless, does Arizona refuse to acknowledge your homelessness unless you belong to one of these eight categories? Sounds like it. To get the assistance necessary to end the homelessness, how many homeless people would then be faced with choices such as: making babies, or becoming (or pretending to be) mentally ill or hooked on drugs. This begs further questions, like, how many people are addicts as result of homelessness?
And, lets not overlook the DES's trick for deflating the number of homeless people further:
Local social service providers don't hold much stock in the DES numbers, which
are based on instances of service provided . . .
The total homeless count does not include those who were denied service, nor does it attempt to estimate those who didn't even apply. Like everywhere else, it's an administrative policy that glosses over the suffering that remains unaddressed and unfunded--it's an administrative policy of cover-up. What leads to a systemic policy that erases any trace of those who slip between the cracks by design? Is it the administrators job security? Political expedience? Ideology or ethos? Is it more or less the same in other states?
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