New York Completes Fourth Annual Homeless Census

Volunteers work from midnight to four in the morning in the bitter cold to find the maximum number of street dwellers.

1 minute read

March 15, 2006, 12:00 PM PST

By David Gest


"But the man with the white cart isn't doing so well. So when asked, 'Tonight, do you have some place that you consider to be your home or the place where you live?' he says, 'No.' And voila: New York City's fourth annual census of the street homeless had found one."

"To some in the room, it seems a little strange to take a street census in 25 degrees and darkness. The timing is deliberate. It's on a Monday to avoid pedestrian traffic and at the end of the month because that's when welfare benefits are running out. And it's in the middle of winter and the dead of night (midnight to 4 a.m.) because that's when only the most desperate people are sleeping on the sidewalks."

Tuesday, March 7, 2006 in The Village Voice

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