Most Migrant Camps Now Counted, Census Office Says

The U.S. Bureau of the Census continued its recount of the migrant homeless population in North County Tuesday, using a full complement of bilingual census takers to revisit several migrant camps.

Mike Weiler, assistant regional census manager, said 102 enumerators visited all but “a very, very small number” of migrant camps early Tuesday morning in the continuing effort to count the homeless population in San Diego county. All but two of the enumerators were bilingual. The recount is expected to be completed this week.

“We feel very, very good in terms of what we’re hearing back from” the census takers, Weiler said. “They said they got very, very good cooperation from the people they counted, and I think that we accomplished all of our objectives here.

“We just have a few more sites where people said it would be more convenient if we came back at a later time.”

The nationwide homeless count began last week and was supposed to be a one-day affair. The count of the migrant population in North County, however, proved more difficult than the census bureau had expected. A recount, the only one of its kind in the nation, began Friday.

Homeless advocates have criticized the census methodology as being inflexible and impractical, and census takers involved in the early count said that it suffered from poor organization.

Homeless advocates also have criticized the census bureau for not giving notice of the recount, preventing observation by outsiders that had been granted in the original count last week.

Homeless advocates said they received reports from census takers that even Friday’s recount effort was inadequate.

“Information was definitely lost because of time constraints,” said Connie Saldana of the North County Interfaith Council, who had spoken to an enumerator involved in the recount.

“It’s great that they wanted to go back and do a more thorough job, but they really could be including more camps that weren’t in their original count.

“I think the first count was a great learning experience for the census bureau, and they really benefitted from it, and they tried to patch up the count in their succeeding efforts,” Saldana said. “But the big flaw is that they’re not counting everyone.”