Local governments helped the Bureau as well,  often investing considerable resources. The Bureau of the Census Twice Changed Plans for Reporting Service-Based Enumeration Data

Under the Bureau’s original plan for releasing Service-Based Enumeration  data in Summary File-1 (SF-1), the emergency and transitional shelter  count was one of several categories of noninstitutional group quarters data  that were to be reported separately. Other people counted in the Service- Based Enumeration, including people counted at targeted nonsheltered  outdoor locations, soup kitchens, and regularly scheduled mobile food  vans, were to be combined and reported under the category “other non- institutional group quarters.”   This category also included residential care  facilities providing protective oversight, shelters against domestic violence,  staff dormitories for nurses and interns at military and general hospitals,  and living quarters for victims of natural disasters. Although the Bureau disseminated separate counts of people  found at emergency shelters, preidentified street locations, and similar  sites, the counts proved to be incomplete. As  a result, when designing the 2000 census, the Bureau attempted to both  improve the count and take precautions to ensure that the Service-Based  Enumeration count would not be misconstrued as a count of the homeless. The Bureau Changed Its Dissemination Plans Because of Data Quality Concerns

In January 2001, 5 months before the SF-1 release, the Bureau reversed its  April 1999 decision to release emergency and transitional shelter data  separately because of “data quality concerns.”  Instead, as shown in figure  1, the Bureau planned to combine the emergency and transitional shelter data with the “other non-institutional group quarters.”  This  category contained data on a variety of living arrangements including  facilities for natural disaster victims. For example, as part  of an extensive effort to help the Bureau develop a list of targeted  nonsheltered outdoor locations, the city provided senior Bureau staff with  a helicopter tour over some outdoor locations where people without  conventional housing lived. Ultimately, the Bureau left a number of data users unsatisfied. Census Bureau Had Few Documented Guidelines Governing the Release of Census Data

A cause of the Bureau’s shifting position on reporting the components of  Service-Based Enumeration appears to be its lack of documented, clear,  transparent, and consistently applied guidelines governing the release of  data from the 2000 Census. Had  these guidelines been in place during the decennial census, they could have  informed the Bureau’s decision on whether to release the Service-Based  Enumeration data, how to characterize these data, and help defend the  decision after it was made. Conclusions

Although Service-Based Enumeration was designed to address the  challenges the Bureau encountered during the 1990 Census in obtaining a  complete count of people without conventional housing, the Bureau’s  experience during the 2000 Census suggests that tallying this population  group remains problematic. However, the Bureau, by first planning to release the data one way, then  changing the decision, and ultimately releasing the data anyway—all for  reasons that were not clearly articulated to the Bureau’s stakeholders— raised questions about the Bureau’s decision-making on data quality issues. Ensure that these guidelines are documented, transparent, clearly  defined, and consistently applied. However, the Bureau  did not cite any written guidelines to support its position. However, we  found that the Bureau did not effectively communicate its decisions with  its partners or the public.
Why GAO Did This Study

The Bureau of the Census partnered with local governments, advocacy groups, and other organizations to help it enumerate people without conventional housing. Counting this population--which includes shelter residents and the homeless--has been a longstanding challenge for the Bureau. A number of organizations put substantial resources into an operation the Bureau called Service-Based Enumeration. In return, some expected the Bureau to provide data that would help them plan and deliver employment, health, and other services. However, the Bureau did not release the data as planned, which raised questions about the Bureau's decision-making on data quality issues. In response to a congressional request, GAO examined the Bureau's decision-making process behind its change in plans.

What GAO Found

The Bureau's original plan for releasing Service-Based Enumeration data was outlined in an April 1999 internal memorandum that called for the separate release of data on people counted at "emergency and transitional shelters." The Bureau planned to combine other components of Service-Based Enumeration, including people counted at soup kitchens, regularly scheduled mobile food vans, and certain outdoor locations, into a single category. Driving the Bureau's decision was its experience during the 1990 Census when it released separate counts of people found at shelters, on the street, and similar locations that proved to be incomplete. The Bureau also tried to ensure that the Service-Based Enumeration figures could not be used as a "homeless" count, because it was not designed to provide a specific count of the homeless. Instead, the operation was part of a larger effort to count people without conventional housing. In January 2001, the Bureau changed its earlier decision because a statistical procedure used to refine the emergency and transitional shelter data proved to be unreliable, which lowered the quality of the data. In response, the Bureau combined the shelter data with a category called "other non-institutional group quarters," a category that also includes data on people enumerated in several other group locations such as facilities for victims of natural disasters. In the fall of 2001, the Bureau produced a heavily qualified special report on the shelter data. A key cause of the Bureau's shifting position on reporting these data appears to be its lack of well documented, transparent, clearly defined, and consistently applied guidelines on the minimum quality necessary for releasing data. Had these guidelines been in place at the time of the census, the Bureau could have been better positioned to make an objective decision on releasing these figures. Additionally, the Bureau could have used the guidance to explain to data users the reasons for the decision, eliminating any appearance of censorship and arbitrariness. Because the Bureau did not always adequately communicate its plans for releasing the data, expectation gaps developed between the Bureau and entities that helped with Service-Based Enumeration.