The New York Times published a short entry on the life of one Debrina Kawam, the woman burned alive while sleeping in a New York subway car recently (link).
In the initial reporting, the victim was described as "homeless" but eventually, when she was identified, the police used language that suggests otherwise: they said she had a "brief stint" in the New York homeless shelter system. This CNN article even said:
The victim was initially believed to have been homeless, which complicated efforts to identify her, law enforcement sources previously told CNN.
The NYT reporter added details, saying:
In the fall of last year, Kawam was homeless. After an outreach team encountered her at Grand Central Terminal, she entered the New York City shelter system and was assigned to a facility in the Bronx. But she never showed up.
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Since I have been digging into how the U.S. HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development) counts the homeless population (here, here), Kawan's case presents an opportunity to put our knowledge to practice.
If she had been alive in late January, she would have been found by the homeless counting team to have been sleeping in the subway system, which means she is part of the "unsheltered" homeless. If she had registered with the assigned Bronx shelter, she would have been counted as "sheltered homeless."
Thus, the reporting that suggests she was not homeless at the time of her death appears inaccurate.
P.S. Another tidbit from the NYT article was her futile attempt to find her mother in New Jersey. If her mother had allowed her to stay even temporarily, Kawam would not be included in the homeless count (neither in New York nor in NJ) as this situation fits one of the exclusion criteria set out in the HUD Guide.
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