LOCAL : OC Homeless Count Seems Thin

U.S. Census officials in Orange County said today that the ambitious nationwide effort to count the homeless went off without a hitch locally but that several of the 200 census takers who fanned out across the area expressed surprise that more people weren’t discovered living on the streets.

Although final figures had yet to be compiled, census officials said field enumerators reported spotting far fewer homeless people during the survey than expected.

Surveys of homeless people in shelters on Tuesday night produced the sorts of totals authorities anticipated. However, there were relatively few people found sleeping on the streets when the enumeration effort shifted early this morning to the back alleys, fields and parks of the county, officials said.

“I think we’ve read too many stories--they had us believing the homeless would be swarming all over the place,” said Joe Montes, Fullerton census district manager. “We could be coming face to face with an exaggeration of the (homeless) population. We’ll find out when we pool our numbers.”