Estimating homelessness via too-clever thinking and long train rides

[pmb]

Grar. Too much to do and think about and too much too much too much. So here's an idea I had on the train this weekend...

While riding the train, sometimes I play the game 'where would I sleep if I were homeless?' I've recently started playing a variant called 'How many of those spots are already taken?'

The resulting number is far too high. I remember when I took the train into the Bay Area, starting about two hours north of the Oakland stop I didn't see a SINGLE PLACE that looked like a good sheltering area that did not have signs of being currently or formerly inhabited. Riding the train into Portland, the line at which the density of good shelters vs. occupied shelters ratio gets bad seems to be about 30 minutes away from the station.

Since this is "distance outside of town", and area covered goes up with the square of distance, then since the bay area became bad 4x farther out of town it follows that they have 16x the number of homeless people (all assuming a uniform distribution of homeless people of course - maybe not a good assumption).

The greater Portland area has 1.5 million (-ish) people. Does the bay area have 24 million people? Answering this question should help determine whether homelessness per capita is higher around SF bay or PDX. Both of them seem like pretty good places to be homeless, so I would expect them both to be higher than, say, Fairbanks.

Comments

And now for something completely different...

[canarasekal.livejournal.com]

Hey Peter!
What's with the bags under the eyes?
- A concerned parent

Re: And now for something completely different...

[dboothe.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, he's just doing his Russel Crowe's Worried Face impression. I can prove it.

Re: And now for something completely different...

[pmb.livejournal.com]

It was a long tiring week and weekend and the picture was taken at the end of a long day in the long weekend. They are not a permanent feature, I was merely extremely tired when the picture was taken. Your kid is still okay.

Re: And now for something completely different...

[kuddliphish.livejournal.com]

Dude, I assumed that it wasn't a picture of you because it looks like you've got, you know, facial hair. Have you really grown a beard? Is that even possible?

Re: And now for something completely different...

[pmb.livejournal.com]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ideath/tags/peter/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/77739106@N00/tags/jongleur/


People say: less supple, better pirate.

Re: And now for something completely different...

[kuddliphish.livejournal.com]

People are right!