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A comment on The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a Texas County. Parent comment

Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by heavyset_go on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @11:59PM (#35367759)
I'm familiar with stats like this for other cities, but in my experience, it's common for those statistics to be misinterpreted.

Often these funds go towards housing people so they are no longer homeless, so you might have X people who are currently homeless, but Y people relying on that $1B to remain housed.

Because of that, it's inaccurate to divide $1B by X and then claim that's how much going towards individuals who are still homeless anyway, when it is more accurate to divide that figure by X+Y.

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Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by lazyasciiart on Thursday March 30, 2023 @02:37AM (#35368885)
This stat isn't even being misinterpreted, it's being lied about. The $1billion is an imaginary number that includes theoretical lost tourism revenue, a pretense at annual spending of the capital costs for buildings used by welfare services, etc.
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