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Comment by WaitWaitWha | Hacker News Reader

We should have zero homeless children.

That said the definition of "homeless" in this count is extremely broad.

For example if you live in a trailer park, you are considered homeless. Even if someone stays temporarily in a hotel or motel, for example because of a fire or flood, will be counted as homeless. Even wider scope, a child who "qualified moved" within the last 36 months is considered migratory i.e. homeless.

https://nche.ed.gov/mckinney-vento-definition/ )

(I understand pointing out incomplete [is there a better word?] facts is unpopular.)

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The better word is false. You’re spreading outright falsehoods, and you’ve created a thread of people who now share the same misconception.

Start at the top of the definition -- the statute concerns “individuals who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence”.

Key word is fixed.

Then you have to be familiar with the difference between a trailer -- as in RV, or motor home -- that is not fixed, and one that is fixed to a foundation (sometimes called a manufactured home, or a single/double wide.)

Living out of an RV is homeless, living in a trailer on a pad is not.

Most facts are incomplete, it's almost impossible to give all the context to any given data point unless you just give people a URL and tell people to read for themselves.

For example, it's an incomplete fact to say that "if you live in a trailer park, you are considered homeless", but thankfully you provided the link to the complete fact!

From your source, a little more completeness for your fact:

"living in ...trailer parks... due to the lack of alternative adequate accommodations"

Thankfully, it is not true that everyone whose permanent residence is a trailer park is counted as homeless.

> living in ...trailer parks... due to the lack of alternative adequate accommodations

Wouldn't this be most people living in trailer parks?

To clarify the clarification... I think this refers to people who are housed in "emergency housing" by some agency like FEMA because their regular home is no longer viable (e.g.: burned in a wildfire), and they have not been moved into something more permanent.

This does not refer to people who's only economic choice generally is trailer parks.

There are a portion of trailerparkers who could but choose not to live elsewhere. I don’t necessarily agree with it, but they made the choice.

>Even wider scope, a child who "qualified moved" within the last 36 months is considered migratory i.e. homeless.

This is what the definition of migratory child is.

(3) MIGRATORY CHILD.—The term ‘‘migratory child’’ means a child or youth who made a qualifying move in the preceding 36 months— (A) as a migratory agricultural worker or a migratory fisher; or (B) with, or to join, a parent or spouse who is a migratory agricultural worker or a migratory fisher.

It's not just that they moved (which is what I read from your comment) but they are a child who's parents are migratory workers and moved within 36 months.

>For example if you live in a trailer park, you are considered homeless.

This seems to check out. It's odd in the rest of the definition.

>(i) children and youths who are sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason; are living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping grounds due to the lack of alternative adequate accommodations; are living in emergency or transitional shelters; or are abandoned in hospitals;*

"...due to the lack of alternative adequate accommodations"

It isn't true that children whose permanent residence is a trailer park are counted as homeless.

>are living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping grounds due to the lack of alternative adequate accommodations

To me it reads the following aren't adequate accommodations if they are by themselves (i.e. no other housing): motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping grounds.

I personally don't think a trailer in a trailer park with an address should be categorized as homeless, I'm just trying to interpret the law as a layperson. Maybe trailer parks were different back in 1965 (i.e. no address).

Living in a hotel does qualify as homeless in my opinion. Same as trailer or anything that is not a fixed home. The definition of homeless doesn not equate to just to simply sleeping under the stars.

I grew up in West Virginia. A LOT of people lived in a trailer - as in they actually owned the trailer and in many cases the land, too (my parents).

Why does it make sense to count these people as homeless?

And even if you're renting... Why count someone who rents a trailer as homeless but not someone who rents an apartment?

> Why does it make sense to count these people as homeless?

It's a social class thing. It's not about having a reliable, warm, dry, safe place to sleep. It's about whether a middle class university graduate's friends would have considered them to have failed at life. Living in a coffin sized apartment with cockroaches everywhere in New York is something they could see themselves doing at some point in their life for career goals or because of bad luck. A trailer is not the kind of place a university graduate lives in.

Not sure why you're getting so downvoted. You might be stating it a bit dramatically, but I've personally seen this attitude in people when living (by choice) in an RV. Many people seem to abhor the idea that someone doesn't live like them. There's broad discrimination against people living in RV parks and trailers in most municipalities.

Many cities ban you putting an RV on your own plot of land, regardless of the purpose. They often ban trailer parks, severely restrict them, etc to the detriment of many economically vulnerable people. There's often a component of racism too as some trailer parks home lots of immigrants or hispanic folks, marking them doubly undesirables.

So the definition of homeless is that it’s ‘not the kind of place a university graduate lives in’? This is absurd.

I don't think poor plumbing is exactly what we're going for here.

Okay, but when I hear "homeless" I think "unsheltered". That's what it means in colloquial use.

How so? I grew up with kids whose entire childhood was in the same trailer park. They were homeless?

A decent trailer can be a more pleasant living experience than a tiny manhattan studio, I fail to see why that should qualify as homeless. Maybe using an in-between category would be helpful.

There is no in between category. They're classed as homeless because the people doing the classification are of a social class that don't consider trailers acceptable. It's not about material living conditions. It's about social class considerations.

This results in laws making trailer living illegal, converting the residents therein to truely homeless, thereby making the numbers balance again.

Yes, unless you consider a trailer a home but then where do you draw the line? One could go as far as considering a tent as a home but come on, we all know what we mean by home. A trailer is just a trailer.

Consider how people who live in those trailers feel about people like you. If you need an intuition pump consider that most Europeans live in houses that are solid masonry, not plywood and plaster. Your houses are basically tissue paper, trashwood and mud. Hardly a permanent structure.

Your public contempt is reciprocated by the people you do not respect.

I think it's more about the overall situation than just the physical structure. If you have a place you can legally stay indefinitely, and you have access to water/sewer/power, then I think a trailer could absolutely be considered a home.

A trailer is a permanent structure with bedrooms, living room and kitchen, bathroom, which can receive mail. Yes, they’re small. No, they’re probably not anyone’s preferred option. But they’re still homes.

They aren't really that small when compared to apartments in cities. Often much larger actually.

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