Census Workers Fan Out in S.D. Homeless Count

“OK, does everybody have enough forms?” asked Paul Creighton, a Chula Vista resident who signed up as a census enumerator for the count of the San Diego homeless population that began Tuesday night.

“All right then, may The Force be with you. Go for it,” Creighton said as he stood in the lobby of a cheap motel and dispatched his team of 15 to count the homeless tenants of the three-story building.

Creighton was one of about 1,000 census takers in San Diego County sent out to count the homeless in emergency shelters, cheap hotels, the streets and the parks in a one-night, nationwide sweep conducted by the Census Bureau. Nationwide, 15,000 people will be paid $7 an hour to help in the bureau’s “most ambitious effort to date to count the homeless,” according to Mike Weiler, assistant regional census manager.

The count took place in two phases, the first phase consisting of the counting of people in homeless shelters, emergency shelters and cheap hotels and motels. The second phase requires census takers to go to street locations previously identified as places where homeless people frequent. Weiler could not say how many locations in San Diego County have been identified, but a list provided by the Regional Task Force on the Homeless identified more than 350.

Creighton and his troupe, which included Mayor Maureen O’Connor, climbed the worn, wooden steps of the hotel with a heightened sense of expectation. Few of them had ever been to a hotel with a sign above the front door spelling out city Penal Code 602: no loitering.

But the count went smoothly, with enumerators going door to door. The residents had been told ahead of time by the hotel management that they would be coming, and most of the 57 residents were cooperative.

“I had one say that he did not want to be counted because he was wanted by the law,” said Ron Riggs, the manager of the hotel.

At the St. Vincent de Paul Joan Kroc Center, the largest homeless shelter in San Diego, the new Bishop Maher Center wing was opened up to the homeless specifically for the count.

The center, which normally provides a roof for 420 people a night, expected to hold up to 800 people by lining the chapel, dining halls and meeting rooms with cots, said Father Joe Carroll.

“Our idea was to get as many homeless indoors to make the count easier,” Carroll said. “That way, you’ll get as big a count and as accurate a count as possible.”

But some of the homeless people lining up outside the shelter to get in felt that, if they could be allowed into the shelter tonight, they should be allowed in every night.

“After tonight, they’re gonna kick us out because we ain’t got nothing,” said William Moord. The center passed out fliers to people who went to their nightly soup kitchen inviting them to stay at the Maher Center on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights. Moord said he usually sleeps in the streets, and he spent Friday night in a 12th Avenue car wash.

Critics of the Census Bureau’s methodology of counting the homeless hoped to have the count take place at soup kitchens and food lines, making it easier by counting people when they are all in one place. Census officials, however, rejected the idea, fearing duplication.

Although the census takers were counting people in shelters, the Salvation Army fed 232 people in their daily food line at Balboa Park, and Frank Landerville of the Regional Task Force on the Homeless predicted that most of those people will be left out of the count.

“They said, ‘They’re not going to count me, they’re not going to find me,’ ” Landerville said.

A particular challenge, however, is posed by the thousands of immigrant laborers and their families who live in scores of crude camps throughout northern San Diego County. Unable to afford rents, the migrants have for years set up makeshift dwellings in canyons, hillsides and open areas from San Diego City to Oceanside.

“Some is just temporary housing where people might stay a week or two, maybe just a blanket and a piece of cardboard,” said Maureen Wanzie, district office manager in Carlsbad for the census bureau.

Early today, Wanzie said, about 200 census counters, perhaps half of them bilingual, will be visiting migrant camps. Census officials plan to visit about 200 campsites identified by social service workers, many of which census workers have already visited to distribute leaflets explaining their presence and stating their vow of confidentiality.

Complicating matters is the traditional hesitancy of many of the migrants to deal with officials, particularly those asking questions. Many camp residents are undocumented and are accustomed to taking off into the hills when U.S. immigration authorities arrive.

“Our objective is to count every single body, regardless of whether they are legal or illegal,” Wanzie said. “If they are residing there, they are to be counted, and that’s what we hope to do. . . .