Counting the Homeless

Louisa R. Stark
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Louisa R. Stark: Community Housing Partnership

Evaluation Review, 1992, vol. 16, issue 4, 400-408

Abstract: On March 20, 1991, the U.S. Census Bureau proposed to count selected components of the homeless population in Phoenix. A variety of problems were noted by observers of the Phoenix count. Addresses assigned to enumerators and observers alike were often confusing, or even nonexistent. Often locations assigned for enumeration were not customarily frequented by homeless people between 2:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m., the hours of the homeless count. Enumerators were noted at only 50% of the locations "seeded" with observers. Only 30% of the observers, posing as homeless people, believed that they were counted. These problems contrast with the positive experience of the 1985 mid-decade count of homeless people in Phoenix, also carried out by the U.S. Census Bureau. Any future count of homeless people in Phoenix should be guided by the positive lessons learned by the 1985 enumeration, lessons that appear to have been overlooked when the 1990 count was planned

Date: 1992
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:evarev:v:16:y:1992:i:4:p:400-408

DOI: 10.1177/0193841X9201600405

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