Homeless Count Imperils Funds : Census: Between $500,000 and $600,000 in state and federal money could be lost annually, county officials say.

A drastic undercount of Ventura County’s homeless population by the U.S. Census Bureau will mean a loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in state and federal funds, county officials said Friday.

The census reported this week that it found just 504 homeless people in the county during its much-criticized, one-night survey of shelters and streets on March 20-21, 1990.

The census counted 347 people without permanent shelter in Oxnard, 121 in Ventura, 11 in Simi Valley and seven in Ojai--but found only two more in the county’s other six cities.

Just one homeless person was reported for Thousand Oaks, though 15 people checked into the city’s only homeless shelter on census night, county officials said.

“This count is unconscionable,” said Richard Wittenberg, county chief administrative officer. “We gave them all sorts of help. But they didn’t have enough census counters, they didn’t have bilingual people. A number of folks got lost. We had about 45 locations we know were never counted. We know 2,000 to 4,000 homeless people live here.”

Wittenberg estimated that the county will lose between $250 and $300 in state and federal money annually for each uncounted person, or between $500,000 and $600,000 if the undercount is only 2,000 people.

Grants from federal housing and health agencies to homeless programs may also be distributed based on the 1990 census, compounding the financial impact of the short count, Wittenberg said.

Census officials acknowledged botching the original count and a second conducted a few days later in response to complaints about the first. They failed to visit 85 of the 193 sites identified by the county as likely places to find the homeless. But they said a third count in May was thorough.

Larry Hugg, spokesman for the regional census office, said Friday that the 1990 count represents the minimum number of homeless in this county and nationwide.

“We don’t know how many there are,” Hugg said. “Before this, we never had any solid numbers. That was the reason the Census Bureau got roped into this count. But I know these are not the numbers the advocacy groups are looking for.”

Nationwide, the census counted 228,621 homeless people, including 49,081 in California. Most homeless advocates accept the Urban Institute’s 1987 estimate of at least 500,000 for the nation as more accurate.

Hugg said most cities and counties have no reliable estimates of homeless people. But Ventura County officials said they are virtually certain that the number is at least 2,000, and probably much higher.

Nancy Nazario, the county’s homeless ombudsman, said she came up with the 2,000-person estimate by compiling figures from a variety of public agencies.

“The census probably counted two-thirds of those people who were on the streets and in shelters,” Nazario said. “But it didn’t count people in motels, in campgrounds, sleeping in their cars, sleeping in overcrowded situations, or staying with friends or family for a few days.

“They didn’t count people who were asleep in the bushes,” she added. “People are not usually up and visible on the street at 2 o’clock in the morning.”

Few of the immigrant farm workers were counted, she said. Many sleep in citrus groves near Santa Paula and Fillmore or in crowded garages in several cities, she said. Garage living is considered homelessness by federal definition.

A number of local officials who deal with homeless people found the new census figures laughably low.

“Five hundred?” asked Carol Roberg, co-director of the Ventura County Rescue Mission, one of two local year-round shelters. “We cycle that many through here in just a few days.

“It was a big joke when they came here,” she said. “They really scared people off when they came in with their camera crews. People just scattered. We saw them running over to the boxcars.”

Roberg estimated the county’s homeless population at 5,000. And two men staying at her shelter--both homeless in the county for years--said they had never heard of the census.