A census double-check last week of 94 homes in a small section of Chicago`s Lincoln Park neighborhood missed residents of at least 28 occupied apartments, a Tribune investigation has determined.
Twenty-five apartments that census enumerators listed as vacant and 3 that were marked as being nonexistent had people living in them on Census Day, April 1.
Those mistakes, which occurred in an area of just a quarter-square mile of the city, could end up costing Chicago a minimum of $112,000 in federal funds over the next decade.
More important, they raise questions about the methods the Census Bureau uses to guarantee the accuracy of its numbers.
In double-checking the census count in a portion of Lincoln Park, reporters found apparent fabrication of data and sloppiness by enumerators. They also found that census workers frequently had a difficult job getting people to cooperate with the count.
In all, the census survey last week of the 94 homes, which was a re-check of census data collected earlier in the year, resulted in the misclassification of at least 37 housing units, reporters found.
Susan Weed, Chicago`s deputy commissioner of planning, described herself as ”flabbergasted” by the findings and said the city will ask the regional census office to investigate.
Earlier this week, investigators from the U.S. Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Bureau, were given the forms that census workers had filled out for the 94 addresses and turned in last Thursday in the bureau`s Near North office. The Tribune also obtained copies of those forms.
The 94 apartments, all listed in the census forms as being either vacant or nonexistent, are in the area bounded by Fullerton Parkway, Clark Street, Armitage Avenue and Halsted Street. There is no way to know whether the pattern of errors found among those apartments is being repeated in other jurisdictions of the census.
Census officials declined to comment on the findings of the Tribune investigation, saying that any discussion of census documents would be a violation of the bureau`s promise that census responses will remain confidential.
”Nobody`s going to be able to talk to you about that because of the confidentiality issue,” said Roy Ellis, who is heading the 1990 census for the three-state Chicago region. ”Even our sitting down and reviewing these forms with you could be construed as a violation of confidentiality.”
Ellis made his comments after conferring with attorneys at Census Bureau headquarters in Suitland, Md.
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On the forms, enumerators must show whether a housing unit is occupied, vacant or no longer in existence, and indicate who gave them the information. The forms, which are part of the Census Bureau`s ”fieldwork follow-up”
operation, may represent the final determination of a unit`s occupancy status. Ellis said it hasn`t been decided whether units covered during fieldwork follow-up will be checked again.
In addition to the misclassification of occupied apartments, other findings of the Tribune investigation were the following:
– Six vacant apartments were erroneously marked as being nonexistent, and 3 that had been renovated out of existence were mistakenly listed as being vacant.
– Only one of 14 people listed on the 94 forms as being sources of information during a July 10 survey of the apartments could be located by reporters, and that person was the source for only one apartment.
– The forms listed phone numbers for three people who were sources about 27 apartments, but one of the numbers turned out to be for a public phone at Columbus Hospital, the second was disconnected and the third was for an apartment outside of the neighborhood and whose occupant said she had never heard of the name listed by the census.
– The forms indicated that 10 of the people listed as sources for 66 apartments did not have a phone or wouldn`t give a number.
– Though the forms were submitted under the names of five enumerators, the handwriting on nearly all of them appeared identical.
”I`m flattered,” said Michael Beers of apartment B-8 at 2350 N. Cambridge Ave. when told that, according to the Census Bureau, his apartment no longer exists.
”If that was reflected in the rent, it`d be nice.”
Beers, who said he has lived in the apartment for more than a year, said he mailed in his census questionnaire about three weeks late.
”I felt an obligation to do it,” he said, noting that incorrect listings can mean ”money out of our pockets here in Chicago.”
City officials estimate that Chicago loses about $400 a year in federal funds for every resident who is missed by the census head-counters.
If only one person lived in each of the occupied apartments that the enumerators said were vacant, the uncounted population would mean a loss of $112,000 for Chicago over the next 10 years.
”The $112,000,” said city planner Weed, ”is money which goes for all kinds of things, everything from street and roads to bilingual education and programs for seniors.”
Any undercount could also end up reducing the city`s political clout, she pointed out, because the census numbers are used in allocating seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and in determining representation in the Illinois General Assembly.
The census form for Beers` apartment indicated that the information came from a Carol Smith who was listed as owner-manager of the building. Smith was listed on a total of 20 forms as the information source, sometimes designated as owner-manager and sometimes as a neighbor.
”I don`t know Carol Smith,” said Beers.
Nor does anyone at Lakeview Associates Inc., 520 W. Belden Ave., which manages Beers` 97-unit building as well as a nearby 59-unit building on Cleveland Avenue.
According to the census forms, Smith told enumerators that 16 apartments in the two buildings were vacant on April 1. But officials of the management company said no more than four were empty on that day.
The census forms for the 94 apartments were completed by enumerators at the conclusion of the bureau`s second fieldwork operation, called fieldwork follow-up, designed to double-check all housing units listed during the first field program as vacant or as no longer existing.
In each of the two operations, a unit is supposed to be checked in person up to three times by an enumerator and three times by a crew leader before a final designation is given. That means that the 94 units were supposed to have been checked as many as 12 times by census workers over the last 2 1/2 months. Jim Ho, property manager for Acorn Investment, was surprised to learn that six apartments in the 35-unit building at 2124 N. Hudson Ave. were designated by the Census Bureau as vacant. His records show that only three were empty that day.
”The census guy was there one afternoon, and I went through the building as best as I could with him,” Ho said. ”When he asked me which units were occupied, I just told him.”
The job of head-counting, however, isn`t easy. All that checking and double-checking aggravated some landlords, such as Debra Cox, property manager at Metropolitan Rental Corp.
”They`re such nincompoops. They bother me constantly,” she said.
”There isn`t a day that goes by without them asking me some stupid question that I have answered for 22 people before.”
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