Not explicitly, maybe, but implicitly, absolutely, and in multiple ways:
- Supporting the system that creates one over the other
- Having ‘bootstrap’ attitudes about the poor
- Worrying about property value over utilization
- Complaining about the homeless rather than the lack of action on housing
- Voting against people who run on public housing
In so, so many ways, people say they prefer the latter over the former. Usually just with the caveat that the homeless people also be invisible.
In business, all data are vanity metrics. If they make you look good, you slap that shit on everything; if they make you look bad, you “don’t have it”.
It’s just that sometimes you can use negative data to make decisions that look good to those above you, and sometimes you know that you can’t.