Do you believe all the stats that are thrown at us nowadays?

NIMAN

Have been thinking about the homelessness crisis recently, and wondering if there are really the huge number of people homeless as we are being told?

I guess of course it depends what you class as homeless, but sure who ever questions the figures?

Another one tonight was a TV advert about people who are abused by their partners, you know the advert where the babysitter hears the husband hitting the wife upstairs through the baby monitor.

Well that advert says that more than 300,000 people have suffered severe abuse by their partners. 300,000? That sounded a lot, plus I got to thinking "how do they know that actual figure"? Do they do a poll of 100 people and multiply it up?

There's 4.5 million people in Ireland. If you take out say 50% who are kids and who can't in theory be abused by their partners, then that leaves 2.25million. Then you have to take out other adults who wouldn't fit into the numbers, like single people, people in nursing homes, priests, then that must bring numbers to under 2million?

So, out of 2,000,000 we have 300,000 who have been severely abused by their partners. Thats less than 1 in 7.

Do people actually think this is accurate? I certainly don't. But hey, it probably keeps plenty of people employed by a few bodies and charities, and on a decent wage.

daheff

Your stats are wrong

cantdecide

It's been proven that just 62.7% of stats are correct.

uck51js9zml2yt

cantdecide wrote: »

It's been proven that just 62.7% of stats are correct.

And 99% of those are made up

Dakota Dan

There were always homeless people but for some reason they keep harping on about more nowadays.

GhostyMcGhost

Don’t believe everything you read on the internet

-Abraham Lincoln

Speedwell

The key is in which statistics you have chosen to question. I see you'd rather deny there is a problem by just saying, from your comfortable little bubble, "Oh, it can't really be that bad". Well, I for one am happy you do not live in a world where there are significant numbers of people going cold and hungry or being abused, and I hope you never do. Just leave the rest of us to help the people who are hurting and keep your bloody mean little mouth shut so we can do the job. If you want to be all nerdy with statistics I suggest football.

freshpopcorn

I think people can't get their heads around the homeliness figures to be honest between those in hotels/B&B and those on the streets. Then there's stats about beds for rough sleepers and sometimes it appears they can't get a bed and others they are plenty of beds but they won't use them and that more beds are needed.
A thing I noticed lately is they announce XX amount of people could become homeless in the next few months.

Speedwell

Rough sleepers are to the total number of homeless as the number of news reports of child abuse are to the total number of abused kids. They're just the ones that are forcibly brought to your attention.

300,000 people who have ever been abused in total in the country is a different number from, say, the number of people abused per year. The definition of abuse matters in compiling this figure, but abuse is abuse and all abuse is bad. And they're not going to be abused right out where you can see, so the numbers always seem higher than you think.

frag420

GhostyMcGhost wrote: »

Don’t believe everything you read on the internet

-Abraham Lincoln

It was actually George Washington that said that.

Lincoln was famous for his quote on net neutrality!

Jimbob1977

Aw, you can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. Forfty percent of all people know that.

donegaLroad

I think the stats thing itself is abused. You have to be discerning. Some companies will use stats to try and sell products.

Eg. ' it is estimated that more than 30 percent of Americans may be lactose intolerant.. New Lactoplus is now available in all pharmacies'

Speedwell

donegaLroad wrote: »

I think the stats thing itself is abused. You have to be discerning. Some companies will use stats to try and sell products.

Eg. ' it is estimated that more than 30 percent of Americans may be lactose intolerant.. New Lactoplus is now available in all pharmacies'

If you are not lactose intolerant then only one number matters to you and that's yourself. You should be, by and large, happy that more attention is being paid to your issue so that you have more choices and a less painful life. Because that's what medicine is for.

Similarly, popularisation of statistics about the number of people who are suffering serves to draw attention to where the community needs to focus its efforts. It's our civic duty to know these things so we can address them. That's what a functioning society is for. Speaking about these sorts of statistics as though they're at all the same thing as a cynical corporate profit-seeking advertisement campaign is contemptible.

Del2005

Speedwell wrote: »

The key is in which statistics you have chosen to question. I see you'd rather deny there is a problem by just saying, from your comfortable little bubble, "Oh, it can't really be that bad". Well, I for one am happy you do not live in a world where there are significant numbers of people going cold and hungry or being abused, and I hope you never do. Just leave the rest of us to help the people who are hurting and keep your bloody mean little mouth shut so we can do the job. If you want to be all nerdy with statistics I suggest football.

Every case is bad but if you use incorrect information or relax the definition then it lessens the genuine cases.

Speedwell

Del2005 wrote: »

Every case is bad but if you use incorrect information or relax the definition then it lessens the genuine cases.

I would like to point out that at one time in the quite recent past, people believed that, for example, cases in which a man raped his wife were not "genuine" cases of rape. The definition was relaxed because we came to understand more about the issue and because the community became more compassionate. Be very careful of assigning some hurting people a label of "genuine" and the rest "false". You risk lessening your response to the "genuine" cases as well.

Instead, choose compassion.

Del2005

Speedwell wrote: »

If you are not lactose intolerant then only one number matters to you and that's yourself. You should be, by and large, happy that more attention is being paid to your issue so that you have more choices and a less painful life. Because that's what medicine is for.

Similarly, popularisation of statistics about the number of people who are suffering serves to draw attention to where the community needs to focus its efforts. It's our civic duty to know these things so we can address them. That's what a functioning society is for. Speaking about these sorts of statistics as though they're at all the same thing as a cynical corporate profit-seeking advertisement campaign is contemptible.

And you think that charities don't do cynical acts. Why do we need so many charities covering the same problem? If they merged there would be more for the people that they are supposed to be helping instead of paying multiple people to do the same tasks in several organisations.

Speedwell

Del2005 wrote: »

And you think that charities don't do cynical acts. Why do we need so many charities covering the same problem? If they merged there would be more for the people that they are supposed to be helping instead of paying multiple people to do the same tasks in several organisations.

I don't remember saying anything about charities. Compassionate people need to keep an eye on the problem so we don't depend so much on professionals. We really shouldn't be leaving it up to organisations so much.

NIMAN

NIMAN wrote: »

Do people actually think this is accurate? I certainly don't. But hey, it probably keeps plenty of people employed by a few bodies and charities, and on a decent wage.

I've learned not to take any statistic or research at face value. Everything these days has some form of spin attached to it. The body or organization that funds the research has an interest in certain conclusions being supported or disproved. The researchers themselves have their own bias or desires for how the 'study' should turn out. etc. The publication reporting the research or using the research to support their article has their own spin to present.

It's like the research that is done to support the advancement of Psychology. Heaps of the research done is based on questionnaires or groups of people chosen specifically for the study and then used as a basis for applying it to everyone else. Is it scientific? not particularly. Is it open to bias, different perceptions, cultural differences etc? Sure. Does that completely discredit it? Nope. Although it will be put forward as being the same as proven.

But in our modern society, everything released to the public has some kind of assurance by "experts" to justify facts. Alas, it seems quite easy for these people to become experts and their own biases aren't questioned.

The statistics on domestic violence, for example, are also open to criticism. Simply because in many cases the Gardai/Police assumed that the husband was the aggressor regardless of testimony or evidence that showed the female being so. Our cultural (and gender) bias is there within all of us... however we somehow expect statistics to be completely accurate.

EDIT: Regarding the homeless references, I'd suggest that the distinction between many different types of "homeless" have blurred considerably with organizations or political groups lumping everyone in together. Very little effort to distinguish those people who genuinely are homeless (the traditional concept), or those who are playing the system. Also very little effort to identify based on reasons for the homeless like economic, psychological, or other. Instead, everything is heaped into one figure to increase the drama of statements.

Will I Am Not

It’s shocking how many people that lose their home don’t get on with their family.
What are the stats on that?

riffmongous

The Fake Sheikh wrote: »

It’s shocking how many people that lose their home don’t get on with their family.
What are the stats on that?

The two are almost certainly related in a long term way

Will I Am Not

riffmongous wrote: »

The two are almost certainly related in a long term way

Yeah, I suppose when people lost their jobs in the recession and subsequently lost their houses, their family did what most of us would do and told them to f*ck off and live on the street.

Irish Guitarist

There's a woman who was protesting in a tent outside the council office here for ages. There were loads of articles in the paper where she was talking about being homeless and how she couldn't get emergency accommodation. In my opinion her story just didn't ring true. For instance in one story her son was staying in the tent with her and in another he was staying with her family.

By 'homeless' I think she meant she didn't have her own place but was staying with her mother. That wasn't good enough for her so she decided to protest in a tent. She had just moved back to Carlow from Dublin and expected to be immediately given a house.

If your definition of homeless is just not owning a house that will obviously drive the statistics up. I guess it depends on what your motives are whether you whether you define someone like this as being homeless.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/homeless-carlow-woman-continues-sleep-out-protest-at-council-offices-793442.html

server down

Dakota Dan wrote: »

There were always homeless people but for some reason they keep harping on about more nowadays.

Must be a crisis.

server down

If a family loses a house or rent becomes too expensive they are effectively homeless.

riffmongous

The Fake Sheikh wrote: »

Yeah, I suppose when people lost their jobs in the recession and subsequently lost their houses, their family did what most of us would do and told them to f*ck off and live on the street.

Eh not exactly what I was thinking, I meant more that a lot of people who struggle with homeless later in life can trace their problems back to their family and upbringing

Will I Am Not

riffmongous wrote: »

Eh not exactly what I was thinking, I meant more that a lot of people who struggle with homeless later in life can trace their problems back to their family and upbringing

Yeah but I thought we were being told that most homeless people are just your average joe that fell on hard times because of the recession and landlords and stuff?

The drinky/druggy homeless are only a stereotype and they barely feature.

dxhound2005

I believe the stats, but I do not always put the same interpretation on them as the media do.

Next month will be Trolley Month in the media (every January is). The stats will show that 600 patients are waiting on trolleys in our hospitals. This will be described as a national emergency and there will be hours of coverage every day for two or three weeks.

Then it will be ignored by the media for the rest of the year. If it was a genuine national emergency it would be an emergency worth the same coverage all year.

con___manx1

Dakota Dan wrote: »

There were always homeless people but for some reason they keep harping on about more nowadays.

There is way more homeless now than there ever was. Rent prices have exceeded celtic tiger levels in Dublin.
Im from an average sized town and there is around 5 homeless people. Never seen a homeless person in the town in my life until this year.

Never Say Never Again

All homeless people have to do is move to one of our offshore islands or some remote village in Donegal or Connemara and live like kings on dole and rent allowance.

server down

To me, the homeless are those people who might have a psychological/social disorder which prevents/hinders them from maintaining a job or from holding on to a home/family/etc.

Years ago, I did volunteer work in Australia (Brisbane) associated with the homeless in the area. The majority of them were addicted to some form of drug (alcohol or others) but that usually came after becoming "ill". Instead, some form of mental condition was common amongst them. Many of them were educated, had held various kinds of jobs, some were married/had kids etc, but something happened to them in life, which damaged them. They were unable to deal with the financial responsibilities of being an adult, or having to deal with the social connections to family/friends/colleagues.

server down wrote: »

If a family loses a house or rent becomes too expensive they are effectively homeless.

Hardly. They've just decided that they won't consider living outside of the more expensive rental areas. They could move outside of the city limits for lower rents. It really depends on their income... and Welfare would cover the costs of many rental areas outside of the city areas. I suspect it's just the many people feel that they shouldn't need to move if they can't afford an area.

diomed

100% of stats come from people looking for funding to finance their charity (fat salary).