Counting the Homeless in the 2010 Census
The Service-Based Enumeration (SBE) operation is the three day effort by which the U.S. Census Bureau enumerates the homeless population every ten years.
The results of the decennial census have significant impacts throughout the country. Exclusion of people from the count, inaccurate counts, or under-representation of populations and their characteristics in the count have the potential to gravely impact communities across America for the ten years following the census. Most significantly, the census affects political representation. U.S. House of Representative seats are derived from the population totals from the census. Moreover, census data is used by state legislatures to determine the boundaries of Congressional and state legislative districts. In addition, census data is used to guide resource distribution. Over 300 billion dollars of federal funds are awarded to states each year based on the census. For example, the census impacts the amount of funds awarded for such activities as new roads, hospitals, schools, child-care and senior citizen centers, and homeless assistance programs.
from the National Coalition for the Homeless
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