Salvation Army Extends No Welcome to Census Takers

The Salvation Army will keep the doors to more than 500 of its soup kitchens shut to census takers seeking information from homeless people, claiming the presence of government workers could scare the homeless away from needed services.

The policy by the Salvation Army, one of the country’s largest service providers to the homeless, could hurt the Census Bureau’s already difficult task of counting that population. The bureau is relying on advocacy groups, shelters and soup kitchens for help.

“The legal counsel has said that we will drive people away who desperately need to be fed,” said Lt. Col. Tom Jones, national community relations and development secretary for the Salvation Army..

The Salvation Army is concerned about the census count of the homeless, Jones said, “but obviously our primary concern is to feed people.”

The census occurs every 10 years. The first forms will be delivered to homes in early March, and households are asked to mail them back to the bureau.

The process is different for the homeless since there are no permanent addresses to mail surveys to. Census workers will instead fan out to shelters, soup kitchens and street corners for three days in late March to count that population.

The Salvation Army policy affects 520 temporary housing shelters that also serve meals. Census workers will be able to talk to residents, but not to those who use facilities solely for meals, Jones said.

Mayors across the country consider the homeless survey an important factor to producing a more accurate count of city populations. The more people in a city, the bigger its chunk of federal funding.

Census officials estimate it undercounted 1.4% of the population in 1990. They presume most of this group are minorities, inner-city residents and the homeless.

In 1998 the Salvation Army said it housed 622,867 people in its shelters and served more than 32 million people total, including both homeless people and those needing emergency assistance.

The Clinton administration has estimated there are 600,000 people in the country without fixed addresses.

“We empathize with the challenges of the Census Bureau. It’s an awesome task,” said Mary Ann Gleason, director of the National Coalition for the Homeless. “What we really have to be clear about is that it’s not an actual count of the homeless population. It’s a service-based enumeration that counts people who receive some services some of the time.”