> "The Census Bureau does not produce or publish a total count of the homeless population[0]."
> So it is very likely the 9.8M you quoted for the total population is off.
Note that the decennial census is supposed to include homeless people, marked as residing in whatever census tract they consider their current home or spend the most time.
Cities generally have a pretty strong incentive to try and get as many homeless people assembled and counted on census day as possible (since more population = more federal money), though the slapdash nature of census operations and the lack of any real explicit local power for census management (rather than that implicit quid pro quo) means there are inevitably some who are overlooked.
For example, in my city, I was part of the effort during the 2010 census to get homeless shelters, police, hospitals, soup kitchens, churches, etc all through the county stationed with Census employees to try and get a more or less homeless count. On our own we would have missed plenty, but we fortunately had the aid of local homeless advocaccy groups to help with publicity and outreach ahead of time, as well as a copious supply of free food and other services to draw the local homeless in to centralized locations on the census day itself.
> this number does not likely include immigrants who may not wish to be counted for social or legal reasons
At least when I worked with the Census, this was a bigger worry than accurately counting the homeless population, since at the time there were a number of groups on the local level actively trying to persuade Hispanic individuals to avoid being represented in the census. Some of it seemed like a genuine (if painfully misguided) attempt at protest, but I couldn't shake off the feeling that at least some of it must have been false-flag efforts meant to suppress minority representation.
> So it is very likely the 9.8M you quoted for the total population is off.
Note that the decennial census is supposed to include homeless people, marked as residing in whatever census tract they consider their current home or spend the most time.
Cities generally have a pretty strong incentive to try and get as many homeless people assembled and counted on census day as possible (since more population = more federal money), though the slapdash nature of census operations and the lack of any real explicit local power for census management (rather than that implicit quid pro quo) means there are inevitably some who are overlooked.
For example, in my city, I was part of the effort during the 2010 census to get homeless shelters, police, hospitals, soup kitchens, churches, etc all through the county stationed with Census employees to try and get a more or less homeless count. On our own we would have missed plenty, but we fortunately had the aid of local homeless advocaccy groups to help with publicity and outreach ahead of time, as well as a copious supply of free food and other services to draw the local homeless in to centralized locations on the census day itself.
> this number does not likely include immigrants who may not wish to be counted for social or legal reasons
At least when I worked with the Census, this was a bigger worry than accurately counting the homeless population, since at the time there were a number of groups on the local level actively trying to persuade Hispanic individuals to avoid being represented in the census. Some of it seemed like a genuine (if painfully misguided) attempt at protest, but I couldn't shake off the feeling that at least some of it must have been false-flag efforts meant to suppress minority representation.