Statistics

The problem with statistics is that they really don't mean a thing.


Kind of like the math you learn in high school. Pointless. (Though I will admit to using algebra to figure out a formula for a friend's business last week.)


But mostly they're just numbers.


25%. 85%. 9 out of 10.


Most people like numbers because they're definitive.


But statistics are subjective.


9 out of 10 dentists recommend Crest. Okay, great. But was that outside a dental convention where the Colgate rep had put them to sleep with a five-hour lecture on flossing?


Statistical data is based on a number of factors, including the representative sampling being influenced by factors which often skew results.


Namely, my unofficial comprised data on homelessness.


At this point some consider me an "expert" in this field. Agencies have sent new program directors out with me to find new homeless clients and workers often call when they are reluctant to go into camps alone.


Even my dad told me he saw one of my "people" today. I wasn't sure what he meant. Old running buddies? Blondes? Ex-boyfriends? I asked him to clarify.


"Someone in a car with floor to ceiling bags."


Ohhh...a homeless person.


Strains of Rodney Atkins' "These are My People" lyrics played in my head....

These are my people, this is where I come from
We're givin' this life everything we got and then some
It ain't always pretty, but it's real
It's the way we were made, wouldn't have it any other way
These are my people

We fall down, and we get up
We walk proud, and we talk tough
We got heart, and we got nerve
Even if we are a bit disturbed

Yeah...I'll take that, Dad. They are my people!

But herein lies the problem. My experiences with homelessness are in one small area of the country. So for me to surmise that since 95% of the homeless I help are addicts the biggest problem our country is facing is not homelessness but addiction, I'm using statistics in a very subjective manner.

It's the old "Bob likes green. Broccoli is green. Therefore, Bob likes broccoli."

It's faulty reasoning at best.

So is my data a representative sampling? Or is it extremely unusual?

I was asked this question today. The director of the homeless coalition asked me if it seemed like addiction was at the crux of homelessness in my area. She has worked with homelessness on a national level and has never seen so many people housed temporarily only to return to the streets as in my area. She said it was not indicative of the true portrait of homelessness.

I told her I'd wondered the same thing. Was I giving people the wrong idea? Was I being unfair to those who weren't playing the charity card?

Or do I see behind the masks in a way many executives do not?

I truly don't know.

What I do know is that statistics don't mean a thing.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1993, my daughter Kacey Lauren was born. 6 lbs. 1 oz. and 18 inches long. Blonde peach fuzz hair and blue skin. She had a congenital heart defect. TAPVR. I can no longer tell you what those letters stood for but they meant her blood wasn't getting oxygenated and moving through her system.

An easy fix, the doctors said. 85% chance of survival.

We buried her on January 10, 1994.

The baby in the PICU bed next to her at Oschner's had only a 5% chance of survival.

She lived.

I hated statistics for years.

Now I know that they aren't scientific. They're just educated guesses based on data that is most likely skewed in some way.

The only cold, hard numerical data I can give is this: 100% of homeless people need hope.

And if that's all I can provide some days, it's enough.