Census workers count 958 homeless in Chicago

ABC 7 Chicago ^ | Mach 25, 2004 | AP

[Land_of_Lincoln_John]

Mach 25, 2004 — Volunteers and city workers say they've counted 958 people living on Chicago's streets. Hundreds of volunteer counters and city employees went out yesterday between midnight and 3 a-m to conduct a census of the Chicago's homeless population.

Carmelo Vargas is head of the city's Department of Human Services, and was in charge of the census. He says the workers probably missed a "couple hundred" people.

Critics say the number is a gross undercount. Chicago Coalition for the Homeless spokesman Samir Goswami says as many as 80-thousand people are homeless in the city during the year.

Vargas says the head count does not include about six-thousand people who use homeless shelters every night.

The census is part of the city's quest to eliminate homelessness in Chicago in ten years.

[Land_of_Lincoln_John]

This story was buried, suprise, surprise, surprise...

[NativeNewYorker]

I'm stunned the AP even ran it.

[Texasforever]

Goswami says as many as 80-thousand people are homeless in the city during the year.

Sure if you count the same 1000 every 5 days.

[Knute]

OH, they must have missed the zillions of displaced unemployed downtrodden souls that are wailing and gnashing their teeth over their suffering under the Bush presidency

SARCASM OFF

[Texasforever]

The other 70,000 were at home.

[facedown]

They missed me. I was hiding on Upper Wacker Drive.

[Kerry Go Home]

The Daley machine ....your tax dollars hard at work!

[Chi-townChief]

I think Goswami's 80,000 count comes from the 'homeless votes' that Daley picks up every election cycle. A bottle of cheap port and a pack of smokes work wonders.

[jwalsh07]

Well now we simply need to know how much federal, state and city funding is allocated to the homeless in Chitown and we'll have something.

[Knute]

I remember bicycling through Lower Wacker Drive back in the 60's on a couple of Midnight Century(100 mile)Rides sponsored by the League of American Wheelmen (Bicycle)
The people I saw then seemed to be able to afford Boone's Farm. Don't know their residence status...

[avant_garde]

The missing homeless are probably in some democrap voting line somewhere waiting for their promised cigarettes and booze.

[stylin19a]

Ding, Ding, Ding...We have a winner ! ........

[Torie]

The author of the 80,000 count admitted they included folks in jail and mental hospitals, those living with a relative like their mom (I kid you not), and those in various shelters. I heard it on Michael Medved. I know it is stranger than fiction, and with all those categories, the 80,000 figure sounds very low, but there you have it. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. Wackos are those with an agenda are everywhere. Maybe I need a gun.

[Torie]

Wackos and those with an agenda are everywhere

[Vigilanteman]

Part of the Daley machine lives in cemetaries. They require neither cheap smokes nor port wine to pull the Democrat lever.