“Garbage in, garbage out” does not improve with age.

Information is not knowledge, and knowledge is not wisdom.

In general, our faith in research statistics and “scientific authority” may be at the lowest point in my lifetime.  I have often repeated the view on this subject by the great philosopher, Mark Twain: “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.”

Nothing has contributed to this loss of faith more than the way “science” handled the COVID fiasco, all the while relying on “scientific” statistics to make the promoted conclusions seem reasonable. What we learned from that experience has added contemporary meaning to Mark Twain’s warning.

It is a pretty thin line that separates bias from propaganda. Every human has biases, and only through highly disciplined and rigorous application of the scientific method can we even attempt to practice honest science and report honest statistics.

More often we see sloppy or worse, manipulated “science” as the basis for policy and eventually laws that we all are forced to obey. Too often, we later learn that not only was the data wrong, but it was known to be wrong by the authors at the time of publication.  But fudging the numbers can serve a purpose if it provides a quasi-scientific sheen to the propaganda and the objectives of interest to the publishers.

Over the years, I have often written and spoken about the fallacies embedded in the Point in Time survey conducted by the Continuum of Care of Butte County.  Ostensibly the biennial PIT survey is designed to “count” those who identify as “homeless,” by asking them questions that provide insights for the Homeless Industry to use to design services, for which they are given money by state and federal government agencies to implement. 

Some of the best-paying jobs in Chico belong to Exec. Directors of NPOs in the homeless industry and city and county employees who serve their needs. I have seen reports that as little as 25% of the funds expended actually go towards direct services for the targeted population. That could be an over-generous estimation, especially when housing is involved.

Every two years, the PIT is conducted by volunteers. I’ve volunteered twice.  The numbers, according to the CoC, are collected by “Sheltered Surveys, Unsheltered Surveys, Observation Tallies, Youth Surveys, and Vehicle Observation Tallies.” 

If the PIT volunteers see a car that looks occupied or see someone walking on the street that looks homeless, they get counted in the tallies.  Those in a shelter are “sheltered homeless” and get counted.  If someone is in jail at the time but will be released to the street, or they are “couch surfing” with friends or relatives, they are counted as homeless.

The surveys are long, and the attention spans of subjects are short.  I surveyed Comanche Creek at its peak occupation but only spoke with about ¼ of the tents and camps present.  Many tents were empty (but get counted) and others wouldn’t participate or give up partway through. Many were just trying to get through the hassle to get the $10 gift card for completing the whole thing.  It reminded me of someone marking answers randomly on a multiple-choice test or answering in ways calculated to produce the best probability of future goods and services. The surveyor is not allowed to ask any follow-up questions.

The survey asks canned questions, like “What led to your loss of housing?” Then the surveyor reads from a list of answers until the person affirms one or more of the prepared answers.  One answer is “substance addiction.”  Respondents who reported this over the years ranged from 2% to 22%. However, Butte County’s Director of Behavioral Health claims the number is actually 80%.  The surveyor is required to simply record the answer, and those answers are compiled into the final PIT report. This is just one example of how faulty this survey seems to be.

The top answers to a question about barriers to housing are: “Employment/financial reasons (23%-42%)”, “Housing Issues (1%-38%)”, and “Force to relocate from home or evicted (4%-22%).  If someone is unemployable because of their addiction or untreated mental illness, they are likely to experience all of these things.  But if we ignore the addiction question, the solution they prescribe for themselves is to give them more money and free housing, which is a good summary of the “housing first” policy that dominates the homeless industry’s remedies for homelessness.  To quote their own slogan, “The solution to homelessness is housing.”  Policy as an oxymoron.

Today, the CoC announced it had completed a “longitudinal study” of PIT surveys between 2009 and 2023. The purpose of this study, as reported by the Chico ER, is to provide a “baseline of common knowledge regarding homelessness locally.”

Harvey-Butterfield, the CoC coordinator quoted in the article, says the longitudinal study is made for leaders and community members to quickly reference the hard data gathered over the years in one place on the root causes of homelessness, barriers to housing, common experiences, demographics of the area and other stats.

As an example, she cites the survey question, “What barriers prevent you from accessing housing?” and reports the top answers as “lack of finding affordable housing, no job or income, finding a job, and poor credit.” The realities of drugs and mental illness don’t have solutions that can be provided by homeless service NPOs, so the survey magically points to something they can do, provide housing. That is where the grant money is, or lately, local money obtained through litigation.

The CoC used to publish a report on all the housing in Butte County that services the homeless population, indicating the number of beds in each, and the occupancy rate.  I once obtained a copy and discovered that there were thousands of beds available in Chico, most of which remained unoccupied.  Today, the CoC refuses to release that data.

I presume these targeted “leaders and community members” are supposed to rely on this data to formulate policies and allocate resources to “end homelessness.”  When we consider the quality of the science represented by the PIT survey, it is not hard to understand why the CoC’s 10-year plan to end homelessness has failed to do so after 10 years of trying and millions of dollars of public funds.  The CoC has simply removed the plan from their website.

The data in the longitudinal study “are plans we can use to go, OK we see a pattern that over the last 10 years we’re steadily increasing and getting more people saying “here is a very specific barrier that needs to be the central component of your concentration to help homelessness,” says Harvey-Butterfield.

Among the many questions that arise concerning the validity and meaning of the “data” is the assumption that public policy should be driven by such a faulty tool.  In a very literal sense, the homeless population is lobbying the homeless industry for what they want, not what they truly need to escape homelessness. 

Since the authorities simply report what they say and then allow those statements to be the basis for action by the various agencies, one can quickly understand why it is little more than a process for satisfying the “gimmes” of the very people who have demonstrated their lack of capacity to know what they really need or navigate their way out of the hole they’ve put themselves in.

No problems large or small can be solved by ignoring the fundamental realities from which the problem arises. But you can make a business of doing so, especially when state and federal policymakers dangle billions of dollars in front of willing agents of implementation, the NPOs and their servant the CoC. This is the essence of the Homeless Industrial Complex I have mentioned many times.

Of individual PIT surveys, the phrase “garbage in, garbage out” doesn’t begin to say it.  To purport to get anything useful from aggregating this data from sources faulty to their core is laughable and tragic.

Here is a question I will leave my Chico citizens to ponder:

According to the longitudinal study, Figure 2, from 2009 to 2023, Chico’s share of the entire homeless population in Butte County went from as low as 51% in 2015 (Chico is about half of the county population) to a whopping 75% in 2023.  Why is that?

While you are pondering that question, consider that California accounts for 30% of the homeless people in the nation, despite representing only 12% of the nation’s population, according to the 2022 report by HUD ( https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2022-AHAR-Part-1.pdf).

The longitudinal study by COC and all of their other reports can be found here:  https://www.buttehomelesscoc.com/reports1.html  Hint: you won’t find what you’re looking for.