Ohio's Homeless Could be State's 7th Largest City

by Shannon Moriarty · 2009-11-28 12:17:00 UTC
Topics:

If you put all of Ohio's homeless people in one place, it would be the seventh largest city in Ohio.

That caught your attention, eh? Same thing happened to me earlier this week when I read a similar headline. That's a lot of people, I thought to myself. See - I was familiar with Ohio's homeless counts. I'd read the statistics, I knew the numbers were growing. But to think that all of those without a home could fall right between Dayton and Parma to be the 7th largest city in the entire state? That gave the number a whole new meaning.

This got me thinking. As homeless numbers continue to grow this winter, it's absolutely necessary to report the statistics. But perhaps equally critical is giving these numbers some kind of context that's easy to grasp. Something that's representative of the scope of the problem. Something to catch people's eye and force them to pay attention.

So 150,000 homeless people in Ohio? Why that's the population of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Or the amount of money spent on Sarah Palin's clothes by the RNC during last year's presidential election. Or the number of people who get cancer in Turkey each year.

Yes, the message is important. But how we say it and put it in context cannot be ignored, either.

How would you quantify your community's homeless population in a way that is interesting and eye-catching? Leave it in the comments below.

Image: SouthernGaming.com

Shannon Moriarty has worked in various homeless shelters and service organizations around the country. She is a graduate student studying housing and urban policy at Tufts University.
PREVIOUS STORY:
Hipsters Mock the Poor
NEXT STORY:
Sallie Mae Blinks!

COMMENTS (2)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.