Census barrier

Tuesday, Feb. 29, 2000 | 11:15 a.m.

Local and federal officials fear that a new national Salvation Army policy could hurt the U.S. Census Bureau's ability to accurately count the estimated 7,000 homeless people in the Las Vegas area.

The policy bars census counters from about 500 Salvation Army soup kitchens nationally.

Census workers could still gather information from homeless people in the charity's shelters, according to a statement from Lt. Col. Tom Jones, national community relations secretary for the Salvation Army.

It was not immediately clear what effect the policy will have on the national count, but census officials and the local leaders of the Salvation Army said they are working to provide an accurate count of all homeless people in Southern Nevada.

Rev. Duane Sonnenberg, a Nazarene minister and administrator of the Salvation Army's Las Vegas homeless services, said the local organization will abide by the national policy on restricting access to soup kitchens -- but the impact should be minimal in Southern Nevada.

"I believe there's really no need to access that part of our facility," Sonnenberg said. Most of the 300 to 700 people who use the organization's soup kitchen on the Owens Avenue campus also stay at least part of the day in the organization's day shelters, where they can be reached by census workers, he said.

The group's emergency services supervisor also may be deputized to collect census information, Sonnenberg said.

The local accommodation to the Census Bureau is the result of discussions going back a year, he said.

Census Bureau employees on the state level declined comment Monday on the Salvation Army's policy. David Byerman, chief bureau liaison for Nevada, said he is seeking direction from the regional bureau offices in Denver.

But David Hoggard Jr., manager of the Las Vegas Census Office, said he believes that most homeless people served by the Salvation Army in the region will be counted.

"I think we can identify a large proportion of them," Hoggard said, noting that many of the homeless served in the Salvation Army's soup kitchens also use the organization's shelters, where workers will be allowed.

The local Salvation Army has "been very cooperative," he said.

The census count is held every 10 years, ideally to count every person living in the United States. The count is important, because it provides the formula for the return of federal tax dollars to the state, county and city governments -- about $670 per person, per year.

"We're going to try to comply," said Lt. Col. Jim Sullivan, director of Las Vegas area Salvation Army programs for the homeless. "We don't want the community to lose dollars."

Information collected by census workers is by federal law strictly confidential, and in past decades the bureau has refused to give information about individuals to law enforcement and other agencies. Nevertheless, some groups, including undocumented immigrants, Native Americans and the homeless, have historically been reluctant to be counted.

Sullivan said most homeless people wouldn't mind giving information to census data collectors. But some could be scared away from the Salvation Army's shelters and soup kitchens by census workers, he said.

One proposal from the local Salvation Army, to use a numeric code instead of names to provide additional assurances of privacy for those responding, needs to be approved by Census Bureau officials in Denver or Washington, D.C., Hoggard said.

Sullivan, who has worked more than 17 years for the Salvation Army in the Las Vegas area, said past census efforts have sparked some concerns about the way census counters collected information from homeless people.

His point of view is shared by the Rev. Joe Carroll, a Catholic priest who runs the MASH Village shelter north of downtown.

Carroll led a shelter in San Diego during the 1990 count.

Some census workers "ran roughshod" over the dignity of homeless people during that count, Carroll said. Those workers need to grant the same respect to homeless people that they would give anyone else, he said.

"It was almost arrogant," Carroll said of the census workers' attitude toward homeless people.

Bringing the homeless the assistance they need -- whether food, shelter, psychological or medical help -- is the critical goal for homeless agencies, Carroll said.

"If a homeless person feels threatened, they will disappear for weeks," he said.

Hoggard said the bureau is aware of previous problems with counting the homeless. He said the Census Bureau, still seeking to hire the thousands of counters it needs locally and nationally, will train workers specifically to collect information from the homeless.

Working with the homeless can often be difficult, Hoggard said.

"We'll take that into account during the training process," he said.

Carroll said he understands that the count is important for the community, and potentially for the homeless themselves.

"I think we need to cooperate with the census as best we can without disrupting operations," Carroll said. He added that in the past, significant staff resources have had to be diverted to help the bureau employees collect the information.

In Las Vegas, MASH Village has deliberately kept its winter tent shelter open an extra month to make the census data collection easier, Carroll said. The tent, which houses about 250 people, will close April 15 this year -- more than two weeks into the active, door-to-door count.

MASH Village serves about 4,000 people annually. Carroll said he hopes cooperation with the Census Bureau will pay off for homeless people.

"Don't forget us," he said, when it comes time to distribute federal aid.

Nevada had one of the worst undercounts in the country in 1990. The estimated 29,000 people who weren't counted in the 1990 census cost the state $200 million in federal aid over the last decade.

In Clark County the loss came to about $110 million, said Karen Allsteadt, a statistical analyst for the city of Las Vegas and a member of two committees promoting complete counts for the region.

The news of the Salvation Army policy came as a surprise, Allsteadt added.

"Any loss would be a concern," Allsteadt said. "We're really motivated to try and work this out."

Launce Rake covers growth issues for the Sun. He can be reached at (702) 259-4127 or by e-mail at lrake@lasvegassun.com