A Problem of Number

Number. Nothing to do with increasing loss of sensitivity, but with mixing singular with plural.

The worthy charity Shelter invites supporters to make donations, to help them help the homeless.  They tell us (and of course, we know what they mean, and they deserve all the help they can get):

"Every fifteen minutes, another family finds themselves homeless".  

It would be easy and correct to say "Every fifteen minutes another family finds itself homeless". It would also be OK to say "Every fifteen minutes another family find themselves homeless."  But the attempt at grammatical compromise "Every fifteen minutes another family finds themselves . . ." won't do, because the phrase 'finds themselves' is a mix  -   a clearly singular verb closely associated with a clearly plural pronoun.

The better sequence "another family find themselves" is rather like saying "the football team [singular] find themselves [plural] in trouble".  Here we refer to the plight of  individuals in their collective role as a group. Whether or not it's grammatically correct, let pedants debate; but it is an accepted idiomatic usage.

Note that in the second pararaph above, I referred to the charity [singular] as 'they' and 'them' [plural].  Were you irritated by the grammatical anomaly ?  Most likely, you never even noticed it.

Meanwhile, support Shelter.

A Problem of Number