3 ms·

Wouldn’t the fact that the population is split 2/1 mean that it is very likely that unhoused people living in those tents do fall into that category? I believe

• fastball 5y ago
  No, as pointed out by the GP, there are a lot of "homeless" people who are living out of their car / crashing on a friend's sofa / etc. While these people are technically homeless, I wouldn't say the general public as a skewed view of homelessness – it's just when people say homeless they're not usually talking about people crashing on a friend's sofa. People in tents almost by definition are not the kind of homeless that will crash on a sofa / live out of a car. And are generally the type of homeless that are panhandling, which is of course the most visible group. It's similar to how there is a disconnect in how people talk about "mass shootings" and what the public think that means. The public thinks of a mass shooting as what the FBI calls an "active shooter" event, where someone is just opening fire on random people, while in stats and things it's just any shooting where 3+ people get shot, which can include gangland-style violence. People aren't "confused", we're just using two different definitions. My point is of course not that the transient homeless don't need help or anything like that. It's just strange to bring them into it when presumably they are not a large percentage of the "habitually living in tents" homeless, which should of course be handled differently.