Fumento's Two Flaws

Fumento's Two Flaws

There are two flaws in Fumento's argument about homeless people. (MICHAEL
FUMENTO, "THE HOMELESS 'VETS' WHO AREN'T," New York Post, December 18, 2007)
He suggests that "money to expand the welfare state," motivates the Homeless
Research Institute (HRI). He ignores the lobbyists for the psychiatric industry
and drug companies who are greedier than HRI. They promote psychiatric illnesses
and drug treatment for no rational reason other than profits. Psychiatry is the
greatest boondoggle in the history of man.
Mental illnesses are created by consensus, not science. (Margaret Hagan,
"Whores of the Court") Psychiatry is personal opinion masquerading as science.
Fumento's focus is misguided.
It is cheaper to put homeless people in apartments and provide them with
the substances that they abuse than it costs to let them roam the streets
committing crimes and destroying the quality of life for others. Sane people
become disoriented when they have no place to sleep and to clean themselves.
Historically poor people are most likely to be diagnosed as mentally ill.
"Asylums in the nineteenth century served as poorhouses." (Robert Whitaker, "Mad
in America," page 173)

Roy Bercaw, Editor ENOUGH ROOM

THE HOMELESS 'VETS' WHO AREN'T
New York Post
By MICHAEL FUMENTO

December 18, 2007 -- THE homeless-advocacy industry always puts the most
sympathetic face on its "clientele." It works desperately to divert attention
from alcoholics, drug users, schizophrenics, and fat panhandlers holding signs
reading: "Hungry."

And it doesn't talk about unpleasant truths like those reported by ABC's John
Stossel (viewable on YouTube) - who, after exhaustive efforts, managed to find
only one person with a sign reading "Will work for food" who would actually do
so.

Instead, advocates focus (with the media's help) on unrepresentative but
heart-tugging cases - like veterans.

Eleven years ago, I debunked a "study" claiming a third of all men in homeless
shelters were vets - noting it was based entirely on the men's own claims, and
that claiming to be a vet is a favorite panhandler ploy.

But comes now a new "study" from the Homeless Research Institute (HRI), the
research arm of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. It claims government
data show that vets are more than twice as likely to be "homeless" as non-vets -
that is, that vets make up 11 percent of the adult US population, but 26 percent
of the labeled homeless.

The 29-page report also insists it's a myth that substance abuse and/or mental
illness is at the heart of the homelessness problem; rather, it's "lack of
affordable housing." And, naturally, it's the job of an expanded government to
make that housing affordable.

HRI's claims are false on both the "veteran disparity" and the causes of
homelessness. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development, for example,
says only 18 percent of homeless are veterans (albeit based on incomplete data),
and that's down from 23 percent in 1996.

That still leaves vets seeming to be disproportionately homeless. But you have
to account for two facts: the demographics of those in homeless shelters differ
vastly from those not homeless, as do demographics of veterans and non-vets.
Most important: Among adults in homeless shelters, males outnumber females by
three to one, while females outnumber males in the general adult population. And
93 percent of all veterans are male.

So HRI didn't really measure the disparate homeless rate of vets; at best it
restated the obvious - that men are a lot more likely to be homeless than women.

On to HRI's claim for the cause of vets' homelessness - namely, that it's mainly
the non-affordability of housing.

As HRI admits, veterans generally are more educated and more employed than those
with similar demographics in the general population; they earn more, too. That
doesn't exactly explain why vets are less able to afford housing . . .

In fact, to live or work near homeless populations is to sadly observe that many
won't even avail themselves of the shelters - you see them on cold winter nights
sleeping on heating vents and covered with blankets provided by city workers who
couldn't coax them inside.

And decades of empirical research support what those of us who regularly
encounter the homeless readily observe: They aren't just like you and me, minus
a home. Their major defining features are indeed alcohol and drug abuse, along
with mental illness.

According to the Veterans Administration, 70 percent of homeless vets suffer
from alcohol- or other substance-abuse, while 45 percent are mentally ill.
Obviously, there's overlap between those groups (since they add up to 115
percent), but between them there's little room for the "non-affordable housing"
baloney.

Further, for the general homeless population, those sad figures are even higher.

Three years ago, researchers at Washington University of Medicine in St. Louis
published a paper in the American Journal of Public Health on the results of
three different studies conducted at homeless shelters (one each for 1980, 1990
and 2000). In the latest assessment, a stunning 84 percent of the homeless men
and 58 percent of the women suffered from substance abuse. Worse, 88 percent of
the men and 69 percent of the women had psychiatric disorders.

Note the far higher rates of both substance abuse and mental illness among the
men than among the women; then recall that homeless men outnumber women by three
to one. That's highly suggestive that it's the substance abuse and mental
illness that's tied to homelessness - and that men's greater rates of the former
explain why they make up most homeless.

HRI does admit that homeless vets have a high rate of psychiatric illness. But
it claims they have a special reason for mental illness: post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD) from their military service.

Obviously, there is some PTSD among homeless vets. Problem is, most vets served
only in peacetime. We've had 17 years of "hot wars" in the 62 years since 1945 -
and even most wartime vets never saw combat. (Another problem: Homeless vets
suffer mental illness at half the rate of the general homeless population -
strongly suggesting that PTSD is not a big factor.)

Not that HRI cares about any of this. Substance abuse and mental illness isn't
its shtick; raising "awareness" - and hence money to expand the welfare state
with more subsidized housing - is. You can count on the advocates to keep on
pursuing that agenda no matter how much it harms the homeless by removing the
focus from their real problems.

Michael Fumento is a former paratrooper who has been embedded three times in
Iraq and once in Afghanistan.