Census Takers Tally Homeless in Southland

Census takers and their helpers worked to count the homeless Tuesday, fanning out through Southern California soup kitchens, street corners, encampments, underpasses and beaches, a daunting brigade to a population accustomed to being ignored.

“I’m not sure people with flashlights are the happiest thing for a homeless person to see,” said Mark, 57, shortly after one clipboard-bearing team questioned him and a buddy in Pasadena’s Memorial Park. Still, they were happy to participate in the nationwide canvassing that began Monday and will end this morning.

“I hope it gives them more insight on the homeless,” Mark said.

Many of the homeless interviewed by reporters didn’t appear to understand the reasons for the census. But all appreciated the incentives being offered in some areas: a crisp new blanket, a complimentary shaving and bath kit, free condoms and an extra night in a shelter.

“God bless you,” said one elderly convert to a volunteer he had lambasted just a few minutes before.

The freebies were dangled in several outreach campaigns Tuesday night, at the same time census workers in bright orange and yellow vests zigzagged through parks, along beaches and streets, stopping to count every transient they could find. Yet spreading the word among the homeless about the census is something that should have started at least a week ago if not earlier, homeless advocates charged, especially in cities like Los Angeles, where many of the estimated 40,000 homeless on a given night live outdoors.

Census Bureau delays in finalizing policies and training workers left them with barely a weekend to prepare for the controversial, if not the most difficult, component of the decennial count, they added.

Also, none of the $167 million spent on an exhaustive advertising campaign touting the census was used to target the homeless, some complained.

“The last time I checked, the homeless weren’t kicking back and watching prime time,” said Mike Neely, director of Homeless Outreach Program, a downtown Los Angeles agency.

At census headquarters in Suitland, Md. Tuesday, officials were left scratching their heads at the frustration. Dates for the count had been locked in for months, and the bureau has been working with homeless organizations on how to do the count for more than a year, said Edison Gore, assistant division chief for field programs. “We’ve certainly had numerous conferences with these groups.”

Gore conceded that worker training generally was limited to four hours, mainly focused on conducting the survey and handling the forms. “I know it’s a challenge to get people acclimated to their jobs” in such a short time, he said .

Outside the Union Rescue Mission, some workers’ discomfort in mixing with society’s outcasts was visible. Census takers Monday stayed close to the entrance and waited until homeless people passed nearby, rather than seeking out dozens more spread around the block.

One census taker said it was intimidating to walk through the gantlet of homeless people. “People are like, ‘I already did it,’ ‘Leave me alone,’ ” said the worker, who refused to be identified. “It’s hard.”

Other census takers worked the crowds with ease, including Hylen Burt, who counted people on the San Julian Street sidewalk behind the mission, a place, where he too once was homeless. “Some of these [census takers] would be afraid of being downtown at night, and I live here,” he said Tuesday. “I know how to deal with people.”

“They’re very apprehensive down here,” agreed colleague Owen Wright, another census taker who used to be homeless. “They don’t know if you’re police, they don’t know if you’re going to turn them in to probation officers.

“That’s the advantage that we have coming out of this arena,” he said. “You know a lot of the people, you know how they think, you know how they work. You know how to deal with them on a one-to-one basis.”

The shelter counts, meanwhile, proved disappointing in some areas, including the San Fernando Valley and the Westside.

On Monday night in Sylmar, only 22 people showed up at the shelter housed in the cavernous armory just north of the Foothill Freeway. That may have been a predictor of an undercount that is likely to come. During the winter months, up to 125 people are housed there.

“They should have broadcast it somehow. Or they should have gotten the word out on TV or billboards or radio or the newspaper,” said Brian Tromblay, 38, who stayed at the armory with his girlfriend.

In Orange County, at a shelter run by First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, Pastor Wiley Drake told residents they had to answer census questions or leave.

“We’re a private facility and have all sorts of rules,” Drake said Tuesday. “And we told our residents that the census does a lot good for homeless people with federal funding.”

Shelter residents said some left out of fear for their privacy or out of distrust for the government. Some who stayed resented the pressure.

“I felt like I was being blackmailed,” said Laura Kessey, 26, who reluctantly participated. “It’s not anybody’s right to pressure someone into giving personal information.”

Suggestions that census workers visit the shelters in February to find out where residents would be this month fell on deaf ears, said John Horn of L.A. Family Housing.

Instead, Los Angeles County spent about $40,000 to reopen all its winter shelters--about 24 sites--just for Monday night’s count, said Natalie Profant, of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

But the homeless census had to be limited to one short period to limit double counting, the bureau’s Gore said.

He and other federal officials stressed that the effort is only a snapshot, not a true count, and merely one factor in deciding how funds get allocated, including a $1-billion “continuum of care” for the homeless. The program provides emergency shelters and outreach, transitional housing, job training, mental health and domestic violence counseling services.

“We have no particular plans to use the homeless count, separate from the overall census count,” said Fred Karnas, deputy assistant secretary for special needs programs at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

But he and others also acknowledge that the bigger the count, the more the overall poverty total will be rise, increasing the chances of more money for the poor.

Gore said he was optimistic that the homeless count would be an improvement over the criticized one in 1990, especially since census takers were visiting soup kitchens, mobile food vans, transitional shelters and a host of other sites not included in the earlier census. In addition, “Be counted” questionnaires will be available at health clinics, clothing distribution centers and other places frequented by the homeless for them to send in after the national survey period formally ends this morning.

Some of the newer sites yielded a larger turnout than many shelters did Monday night. At Pasadena’s Union Station Foundation on Tuesday, census takers introduced themselves to transients as they entered for the daily meal service.

Most, like 71-year-old Sam Gibson, appeared eager to participate in the five-minute process.

“I hope money will be directed to help us,” Gibson said. “But I don’t think that will happen because when you’re poor and homeless, no one cares about you.”

Lines Form in Oxnard

At a Salvation Army drop-in center in Oxnard, clients quickly formed a line that stretched out the door and into the parking lot after the shelter manager provided complimentary sanitary kits to those willing to fill out the forms.

“I don’t see how it can do any harm,” said Oxnard native Frank Morales, 39, who became homeless in December after a messy divorce and battle with health problems.

Census workers were no-shows at one of the homeless community’s regular haunts Tuesday evening: the nightly meal served to 70 to 100 people by the Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition from a van at the corner of Sycamore Avenue and Romaine Street in Los Angeles.

Not that the clients lining up minded. There are “a lot of people who are wanted for different crimes, and they don’t want to be found,” said Anthony, who asked that his last name not be used. “If they put that information in a computer, anybody can get in there.”

Getting a count at makeshift encampments, overpasses and the like also proved difficult.

“If you see them drinking, it’s not even worth giving them a survey,” Timothy Hart, 43, warned four college-age women to whom he had just given his third census interview of the day at a Santa Monica beach. “A lot of these guys are angry, and alcohol just brings it out.”

Earlier, at Venice Beach, a few homeless men said they were unaware of the count and viewed it with great skepticism.

An incredulous Sterling G. Mouton, 42, sat on a bench beside a sand sculpture of a mermaid, a thick band of silver necklaces tied about his neck. “Counting people? That’s kind of stupid. That’s like the police,” he said.

Times staff writers Fred Alvarez, Johnathon E. Briggs, Bobby Cuza, David Haldane, Willoughby Mariano and Monte Morin contributed to this story.