O’Reilly Uses Edwards Issue To Again Minimalize The Homeless Veteran’s Plight

[babylonsister]

http://steveyoungonpolitics.com/o%e2%80%99reilly-uses-edwards-issue-to-again-minimalize-the-homeless-veteran%e2%80%99s-plight/

O’Reilly Uses Edwards Issue To Again Minimalize The Homeless Veteran’s Plight
Steve Young
August 11, 2008


Once again, Bill O’Reilly played his “John Edwards exploited veterans by fanatical exaggeration of the number of homeless veterans” card. And he says the recent HUD figures prove it.

O’Reilly had said that Edwards said there were 200,000 homeless vets, which Edwards later lowered to 150,000 when making a speech supporting Barack Obama.

O’Reilly failed to mention that at the time,Veteran’s Affairs were estimating near “…200,000 veterans were homeless on any given night…”

Now O’Reilly says that HUD’s new homeless data reports that there are 132,000 homeless and only 13% of them are veterans. That would equates to around 17,000 vets on the streets. The problem is that there are 132,000 “chronic” homeless - those who are out on the street for over a year straight or have experienced at least four episodes of homelessness in the past three years. The HUD data actually states the total number of homeless, which Edwards was referring to, is 1.6 million. The veteran’s percentage of 13% would then equate to around 200,000 homeless. Edwards number.

Makes one wonder if O’Reilly wants to minimalize Edwards…or the homeless veteran. The actual numbers should speak for themselves.