In an attempt to describe clearly that Census 2000 would not be producing a count of the population experiencing homelessness, the Census Bureau adopted the terminology, "people without conventional housing." People without conventional housing are defined as the population who may be missed in the traditional enumeration of housing units and group quarters. Because of the difficulty in enumerating this population, special enumeration procedures were developed with the goal of providing people an opportunity to be included in Census 2000. A special 3-night enumeration was conducted in March of 2000. The Census Bureau cautions data users that any attempt to use the results from these specialized operations as a measure of the number of people experiencing homelessness would be inaccurate.

The results of this special enumeration were released in Census 2000 Special Report Emergency and Transitional Shelter Population: 2000 (CENSR/01-2). Also, the results of this enumeration are incorporated in the "other, noninstitutionalized group quarters" category using American FactFinder.

Other sources on the homeless population include the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (http://oas.samhsa.gov/groups.htm)& release on the treatment of homeless people for substance abuse, and the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (http://www.ich.gov/).

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