Census Bureau Plans to Hire Street People

In an effort to count the nation’s homeless population for the first time, the U.S. Census Bureau plans to hire street people for the 1990 Census to scout alleys, all-night movie theaters and other places where the homeless are likely to be found.

The bureau makes a practice of hiring census takers from the groups being counted, Moises Carrasco, state coordinator of the Census Bureau’s community awareness program in California, said in an interview Wednesday. The street people who are hired will be depended on to identify places where the homeless congregate and then to briefly interview them.

“This is the first time we’re making a concerted effort to count them,” Carrasco said. “The numbers of homeless are growing and we’re supposed to count everyone.”

Carrasco said that in 1980, the homeless were not counted separately nor systematically. They were counted primarily at shelters and randomly on the streets and the numbers were lumped in with the general population, he said.

“There is not much good data on the homeless” and estimates of their number vary widely, he added.

The Census Bureau estimates that it will find about 400,000 homeless people for its 1990 count, although the National Coalition for the Homeless estimates there are as many as 3 million homeless nationwide. California is believed to have one of the largest populations of homeless, with an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 in Los Angeles County alone.

Street people hired as census takers will be paid the standard wage of $5.50 an hour. But they will limit their questions to basic ones about age, sex and race, and will refrain from asking personal questions about how and why people have become homeless.

Carrasco doesn’t expect the job to be easy. “It’s a very changing population, very mobile” that doesn’t particularly like answering questions, he said.

During a “test census” conducted earlier this year in St. Louis, the streets became suddenly deserted on the day the count was to take place, Carrasco said. “We’re not going to announce it next time,” he added.

In preparation for the census, which is scheduled for March, 1990, the Census Bureau has begun to solicit suggestions on how best to reach street people from a wide range of community organizations and agencies that serve the homeless, Carrasco said. The bureau is counting on the groups to help identify where the homeless are to be found, the best times to find them there and how to recruit qualified census takers from the ranks of the homeless, he said.

Before they can be hired, the street people applying for the job must pass a routine test of “basic communication skills that show you can read and write and follow instructions,” Carrasco said. “We don’t think it will be a problem. We understand there are some very qualified people among the homeless.”

Those who pass the test will receive a few days of training in preparation for the one-day census. Carrasco said that the number hired will depend on how many locations the bureau identifies where homeless are to be counted. About 450,000 census takers were hired across the country for the 1980 Census.

Given the difficulty in finding and counting people who have no homes, Carrasco said he does not expect “to be able to count all of them. But we have a two-year head start and we’ll do our best.”