Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 21, 1990 TAG: 9003212353
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
With a budget of $2.7 million and a staff approaching 15,000, the U.S. Census Bureau attempted to count on one night a population that could number in the millions. It was the first effort to count such people separate from the rest of the population, most of whom were to receive census forms in the mail.
Census officials conceded their count of homeless people was not expected to be complete.
At a Washington news conference Tuesday, Census Bureau Director Barbara Bryant said that while the count would not be exhaustive, "these numbers will be believable. Is it hundreds of thousands? Is it millions? We're going to show that kind of scope."
The novel exercise was shaping up as an all-night, national spectacle.
In San Francisco's Golden Gate Park the census takers, wary of ambush, planned to keep to the lighted perimeters, calling out for any homeless people hiding in the bushes to come forward to be counted.
In Washington, D.C., wary homeless advocates were attempting to thwart the census, refusing to let counters inside a shelter where a thousand homeless were said to have congregated. And in Los Angeles, buses were being hastily arranged to haul homeless from the rougher streets to armories and emergency shelters for counting.
In big cities, small towns and everywhere else American homeless congregate, it was clear the census takers had their work cut out for them. Finding the homeless posed one major difficulty, convincing them to cooperate was another.
Juanita Webster, a 25-year-old census taker in New York who was recruited from the ranks of homeless people, said many feared the consequences of cooperating despite assurances that all information given remains confidential.
"They're very wary because they fear it might interfere with their social services," Webster said.
People interviewed will be asked their age, race, sex, what languages they speak, what income, if any, they receive and where they usually stay.
Census Bureau officials said Tuesday that people found asleep on the streets were not to be wakened. Instead, census takers were to note their presence and try to guess sex and race.
The U.S. census is taken every decade. A decision on whether to count homeless separately every decade has not been made.
by CNB