Newsroom Archive

The Commerce Department's Census Bureau today released a new Census 2000 report, Emergency and Transitional Shelter Population: 2000, that provides tabulations on the population enumerated in emergency and transitional shelters.

In this report, the population in emergency and transitional shelters were counted on March 27, 2000, and include the following facilities: emergency shelters (with sleeping facilities); shelters for children who are runaways, neglected or without conventional housing; transitional shelters for people without conventional housing; and hotels and motels used to provide shelter for people without conventional housing. Shelters for abused women (or shelters against domestic violence) are not included. Data are shown in the report for the emergency and transitional shelter population, but not separately by type of facility.

Emergency and transitional shelters were one type of group quarters included in Census 2000. Others were group homes, correctional facilities, halfway houses, college dormitories and worker dormitories.

The Census Bureau stressed that the shelter figures do not constitute and should not be construed as a tabulation of the total population without conventional housing or "people experiencing homelessness." Not all people without conventional housing on March 27, 2000, resided at shelters. Some may have "doubled up" at housing units owned or rented by friends or relatives or found other nonshelter locations that night. And, since the shelters were visited only one night, only the people residing at shelters open that night would have been enumerated.

A list of tables follows:

• Table 1. Population in Emergency and Transitional Shelters for the United States, Regions, States, and Puerto Rico: 1990 and 2000
• Table 2. Population in Emergency and Transitional Shelters by Sex and Age for the United States, Regions, States, and Puerto Rico: 2000
• Table 3. Population in Emergency and Transitional Shelters by Sex, Age and Hispanic or Latino Origin, for the United States: 2000
• Table 4. Population in Emergency and Transitional Shelters by Age for Metropolitan Areas With 100 or More People in Emergency and Transitional Shelters in the United States and in Puerto Rico: 2000
• Table 5. Population in Emergency and Transitional Shelters by Age for Places of 100,000 or More Population With 100 or More People in Emergency and Transitional Shelters in the United States and in Puerto Rico: 2000

An additional table will be released on the Census Bureau's Internet site at https://www.census.gov/. It has population data for selected group quarters for the United States, counties with 100 or more people in emergency and transitional shelters and census tracts with 100 or more people in emergency and transitional shelters. The same table includes counts of selected group quarters in Puerto Rico.