I'm sure you've heard it many times, people saying "that person looks homeless" or "he's dressed like he's homeless." What do people mean when they say someone looks homeless? I conducted a little experiment to help me figure out what looking homeless means.
Since Google's image search algorithm prioritizes images in part based on the number of times an image is clicked relative to a particular search term, I used Google's prioritization of images depicting homeless persons as a crowdsourced visual representation of what people believe homelessness looks like. My experiment was simple. I did a Google image search for the term "homeless" and tallied the demographic characteristics of the people depicted on the first results page (18 images in all). I then compared the search results to actual demographic data about homelessness nationwide to get a sense of how well Google's visual representation of homelessness matches reality.
Not surprisingly, the demographic characteristics of the people depicted on the first page of the Google image search differed dramatically with data about homelessness. Of the people represented as homeless in the Google image search, only 14 percent were female compared to a national estimate of 32 percent, only five percent were children compared to the more realistic estimate of 38 percent, none were pictured in families although 41 percent of those experiencing homelessness are part of families, and all were depicted as chronically homeless and unsheltered, mainly panhandling, when in reality 44 percent of the total homeless population are unsheltered and 23 percent are chronically homeless.
Of course, I am being tongue-in-cheek. We know full well what people usually think those experiencing homelessness look like, and we know they are wrong. Most people are wrong about what homelessness looks like because their perceptions of homelessness are constructed by encounters in their daily lives, usually limited to brief interactions on street corners with chronic homeless individuals. As homeless advocates, we know that the homeless population is far more varied. We know this because we rely on more than just what we see on the street; we rely on survey data and reasoned analysis.
However, as advocates we too must be careful not to let what we see in our daily work distort our understanding of the realities of homelessness. Too often in the comment forums here on Change.org I read that survey data is wrong because particular readers "see" more homelessness on the streets, or in a particular shelter. While this may very well be true, and perhaps is reason to perform more frequent, and better, statistical samplings, it is not in and of itself data.
If we are to end homelessness, we must demand a higher level of rigor and statistical discipline of ourselves. It is wrong for people to assume they know what homelessness looks like based on their personal experience with a chronically homeless person on their walk to work. It is equally wrong of us to let our subjectivity cultivate a mistrust of data just because it does not conform to our beliefs.
Photo credit: mark sebastian
Article reprinted from
End Homelessness | Change.org
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