City Will Deploy 25 Teams to Count the Homeless : Population: The 1990 Census found 234 people, but officials believe there may be as many as 3,000. They hope that a more accurate count will bring more money for local programs.
Although many cities have complained that their homeless populations were undercounted in the 1990 U.S. Census, Pasadena is one of the few that have decided to do something about it.
On Wednesday, the city will send 25 teams, each including a homeless person, onto the city’s streets to gather what officials hope will be a more accurate count.
The 1990 Census found 234 homeless people in Pasadena, a city of 135,000. Of those, 14 were counted on the street, the balance in homeless shelters.
But some city officials and homeless activists say the real number may be as high as 3,000. Many of the homeless were reportedly overlooked because they live in places such as cars, abandoned buildings and freeway underpasses.
Consider Steve Jensen, who sits one sunny day at the Union Station Homeless Shelter in Pasadena and recounts how he fell on hard times. The 43-year-old electronic technician lost his aerospace job, his wife and his house in 1989.
Since then, he has lived on the street and occasionally in shelters. Jensen said he wasn’t counted in the 1990 Census. But he will definitely be counted Wednesday.
The city has recruited Jensen, at $7 an hour, to help count Pasadena’s homeless. The recount, which is expected to cost $4,576, begins at 10 p.m. Officials hope to finish by midnight. Already, the city has identified 73 places where homeless people sleep.
“Usually by dark, people are pretty well set for the night, and the word is out among the homeless community that we’re coming,” said Gloria M. Kunkel, executive director of Union Station.
But Kunkel acknowledges that the counters may not find every homeless person. “Drug alleys and places that are extremely dangerous, we just won’t go there, they’re much too dangerous at night,” she said.
Civic leaders and homeless activists hope that a more accurate count will bring more money to the city for homeless programs. Cities receive county, state and federal funds based on their population.
Activists say that the homeless were undercounted in most American cities, but they say many cities don’t want to be bothered with recounts. Other cities, which are courting investment by touting their cities as affluent, clean and safe, aren’t eager to call attention to their homeless population.
Census officials in Los Angeles say they know of no other California cities that are recounting their homeless, although cities don’t necessarily notify the bureau.
A Pasadena city proposal says that “most Pasadenans . . . share a sense of despair and feel powerless in the face of this seemingly unstoppable scourge of the 1990s. Saddened by the sight of street people, many ask, ‘Just how many homeless people are there in our city and what can be done about it?’ ”
Joe Colletti, director of Lutheran Social Services for the San Gabriel Valley, which runs cold-weather shelters for the homeless, called Pasadena “very sensitive to homelessness.”
Colletti is on the board of the Homeless Count Advisory Committee, which brought together civic leaders, nonprofit groups and homeless people last October to plan the recount.
The 25 teams of four that will fan out through the city will include a homeless person, a human services provider and two volunteers, one bilingual in Spanish.
Members will wear Day-Glo orange T-shirts that read “We All Need To Know.” They will ask questions about length of homelessness, age, marital status and military service. The city also has passed out bright orange brochures and flyers urging cooperation.
“I think they’re doing what they can,” Kunkel said. “Pasadena’s quite unique in the social service area. We have a lot of agencies addressing a lot of needs and there’s a greater sense of caring and community than there is in other areas.”
