Supervisor Criticizes Census of Homeless : Poverty: Madge Schaefer says count was ‘mismanaged.’ She asks for an added night to find more of the poor.

Ventura County Supervisor Madge Schaefer criticized the federal government’s effort to count homeless people as “inexcusably mismanaged” and called for an additional night to complete the census of the county’s homeless.

In a letter sent Thursday to the U.S. Census Bureau, Schaefer complained that bureau managers failed to send a sufficient number of Spanish-language questionnaires and to employ enough bilingual census takers who could communicate with homeless people who speak only Spanish.

From what she witnessed Tuesday night, Schaefer said, she believes that census takers missed a substantial number of the county’s homeless. Such undercounting, she said, could cost Ventura County state and federal money distributed by population.

The Census Bureau’s performance, she wrote, “was not only a disservice to our community, but a sad example of the federal government’s inability to get the job done right--the first time.”

“Under these unfortunate circumstances,” she wrote, “I strongly feel the Census Bureau has an obligation to designate an additional night to count Ventura County’s homeless.”

John Reeder, the bureau’s California regional director, said he had not received the letter but would investigate Schaefer’s complaints.

“We are not going to do another S-night,” he said, referring in bureau jargon to the dawn-to-dusk sweep for the homeless officially known as “shelter and street night.”

But Reeder said he would look into her allegations. “We may come back and say we flat disagree with some of her points,” he said. “But if we didn’t get a complete count at a certain location, we will take corrective action.”

For nearly a year, Schaefer has led the county’s effort to publicly stress the importance of the 1990 census. As she often says, each person counted is worth $200 a year in state and federal aid that is parceled out by formulas based on population.

From the beginning, Schaefer and her staff say, it has been frustrating to deal with the Census Bureau. “Many of our early suggestions, like inserting 1990 census reminders in our county tax mailings, were lost in bureaucratic heaps of red tape,” she wrote in her letter to Reeder.

Yet the most unnerving experience came, she said in an interview, when she toured three homeless shelters Tuesday night to witness the Census Bureau’s first attempt in its 200-year history to count homeless people as a separate group.

Schaefer said that Census Bureau officials in the county said they had 130 census takers, known as enumerators, looking for homeless people. But, she said, she saw only eight at the county’s three largest shelters. Officials later said they dispatched 59 census takers during the all-night effort.

Census Bureau officials categorized Zoe Christian Center, the largest shelter, as a “transient hotel” rather than a place for the truly homeless. Because of that definition, its occupants were not counted during Tuesday night’s sweep, which Schaefer said may have resulted in many women and children who stay a night and leave not being counted.

In addition, communication between census takers and managers appeared haphazard at best, she wrote. At one point during her tour of the shelters, the lack of coordination and available help to non-English speakers prompted Schaefer, who does not speak Spanish, to grab census forms and interview a series of homeless men herself.

“I think Madge is rightfully upset,” said Oxnard Mayor Nao Takasugi. “The enumerators . . . needed to interview Spanish-speaking homeless people were sadly lacking.”

Takasugi said he made it clear in a letter to census officials Jan. 12 that his city has large numbers of non-English-speaking Latinos. “I did request that the Census Bureau hire bilingual enumerators so they could communicate with our residents who only speak Spanish.”

In addition, Schaefer said, city employees from Oxnard, Port Hueneme and Ventura provided the Census Bureau with about 100 names of bilingual people who wanted to become census takers but never received any response, she said.

Despite her complaints, Schaefer praised the census takers who interviewed the homeless. “Despite a serious lack of management, leadership and support, the enumerators did their work compassionately and tirelessly,” she wrote.

“This is the first time we mounted such a thing,” Reeder said. “When you hire as many people as we did and go to as many locations, it’s not going to be perfect. Do you want to know my general impression of S-night? It was a success.”

The Census Bureau will not release figures on the number of homeless people until next year.