All people not living in housing units are classified by the Census Bureau as living in group quarters. We recognize two general categories of people in group quarters: (1) institutionalized population and (2) noninstitutionalized population.
The type of institution was determined as part of census enumeration activities. For institutions that specialize in only one specific type of service, all patients or inmates were given the same classification. For institutions that had multiple types of major services (usually general hospitals and Veterans Administration hospitals), patients were classified according to selected types of wards. For example, in psychiatric wards of hospitals, patients were classified in "mental (psychiatric) hospitals"; in general hospital wards for people with chronic diseases, patients were classified in "other hospitals for the chronically ill." Each patient or inmate was classified in only one type of institution. Institutions include the following types:
Correctional institutions
Includes prisons, federal detention centers, military disciplinary barracks and jails, police lockups, halfway houses used for correctional purposes, local jails, and other confinement facilities, including work farms.
Where people convicted of crimes serve their sentences. In some census products, the prisons are classified by two types of control: (1) "federal" (operated by the Bureau of Prisons of the Department of Justice) and (2) "state." In census products this category includes federal detention centers. Residents who are criminally insane were classified on the basis of where they resided at the time of enumeration: (1) in institutions (or hospital wards) operated by departments of correction or similar agencies, or (2) in institutions operated by departments of mental health or similar agencies.
Federal detention centers
Operated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the Bureau of Prisons. These facilities include: detention centers used by the Park Police; Bureau of Indian Affairs Detention Centers; INS Centers, such as the INS Federal Alien Detention Facility; INS Processing Centers; INS Contract Detention Centers used to detain aliens under exclusion or deportation proceedings, as well as those aliens who have not been placed into proceedings, such as custodial required departures; and INS Detention Centers operated within local jails, and state and federal prisons.
Military disciplinary barracks and jails
Operated by military police and used to hold people awaiting trial or convicted of violating military laws.
Local jails and other confinement facilities
Includes facilities operated by counties and cities that primarily hold people beyond arraignment, usually for more than 48 hours and police lockups operated by county and city police that hold people for 48 hours or less only if they have not been formally charged in court. Also, includes work farms used to hold people awaiting trial or serving time on relatively short sentences and jails run by private businesses under contract for local governments (but not by state governments).
Operated for correctional purposes and include probation and restitution centers, prerelease centers, and community-residential centers.
Other types of correctional institutions
Privately operated correctional facilities and correctional facilities specifically for alcohol or drug abuse.
Comprises a heterogeneous group of places providing continuous nursing and other services to patients. The majority of patients are elderly, although people who require nursing care because of chronic physical conditions may be found in these homes regardless of their age. Included in this category are skilled-nursing facilities, intermediate-care facilities, long-term care rooms in wards or buildings on the grounds of hospitals, or long-term care rooms/nursing wings in congregate housing facilities. Also included are nursing, convalescent, and rest homes, such as soldiers, sailors, veterans, and fraternal or religious homes for the aged, with nursing care.
Includes homes, schools, and other institutions providing care for children (short- or long-term care). Juvenile institutions include the following types:
Homes for abused, dependent, and neglected children
Includes orphanages and other institutions that provide long-term care (usually more than 30 days) for children.
Residential treatment centers
Includes those institutions that primarily serve children who, by clinical diagnosis, are moderately or seriously disturbed emotionally. Also, these institutions provide long-term treatment services, usually supervised or directed by a psychiatrist. Training schools for juvenile delinquents. Includes residential training schools or homes, and industrial schools, camps, or farms for juvenile delinquents.
Public training schools for juvenile delinquents
Usually operated by a state agency (for example, department of welfare, corrections, or a youth authority). Some are operated by county and city governments. These public training schools are specialized institutions serving delinquent children, generally between the ages of 10 and 17 years old, all of whom are committed by the courts.
Operated under private auspices. Some of the children they serve are committed by the courts as delinquents. Others are referred by parents or social agencies because of delinquent behavior. One difference between private and public training schools is that, by their administrative policy, private schools have control over their selection and intake.
Includes institutions providing short-term care (usually 30 days or less) primarily for delinquent children pending disposition of their cases by a court. This category also covers diagnostic centers. In practice, such institutions may be caring for both delinquent and neglected children pending court disposition.
Noninstitutionalized population
Includes people who live in group quarters other than institutions. Includes staff residing in military and nonmilitary group quarters on institutional grounds who provide formally authorized, supervised care or custody for the institutionalized population.
Includes "community-based homes" that provide care and supportive services. Such places include homes for the mentally ill, mentally retarded, and physically handicapped; drug/alcohol halfway houses not operated for correctional purposes; communes; and maternity homes for unwed mothers.
Homes for the mentally ill
Includes community-based homes that provide care primarily for the mentally ill. Homes that combine treatment of the physically handicapped with treatment of the mentally ill are counted as homes for the mentally ill.
Homes for the mentally retarded
Includes community-based homes that provide care primarily for the mentally retarded. Homes that combine treatment of the physically handicapped with treatment of the mentally retarded are counted as homes for the mentally retarded.
Homes for the physically handicapped
Includes community-based homes for the blind, for the deaf, and other community-based homes for the physically handicapped. People with speech problems are classified with homes for the deaf. Homes that combine treatment of the physically handicapped with treatment of the mentally ill are counted as homes for the mentally ill. Homes that combine treatment of the physically handicapped with treatment of the mentally retarded are counted as homes for the mentally retarded.
Homes or halfway houses for drug/alcohol abuse
Includes people with no usual home elsewhere in places that provide community-based care and supportive services to people suffering from a drug/alcohol addiction and to recovering alcoholics and drug abusers. Places providing community-based care for drug and alcohol abusers include group homes, detoxification centers, quarterway houses (residential treatment facilities that work closely with accredited hospitals), halfway houses, and recovery homes for ambulatory, mentally competent recovering alcoholics and drug abusers who may be reentering the work force.
Includes people with no usual home elsewhere in communes, foster care homes, and maternity homes for unwed mothers. Most of these types of places provide communal living quarters, generally for people who have formed their own community in which they have common interests and often share or own property jointly. The maternity homes for unwed mothers provide domestic care for unwed mothers and their children. These homes may provide social services and postnatal care within the facility, or may make arrangements for women to receive such services in the community. Nursing services are usually available in the facility.
Includes, primarily, group quarters for nuns teaching in parochial schools and for priests living in rectories. It also includes other convents and monasteries, except those associated with a general hospital or an institution.
College quarters off campus
Includes university-owned off-campus housing, if the place is reserved exclusively for occupancy by college students who do not have their families living with them. In census products, people in this category are classified as living in a college dormitory.
Includes college students in dormitories (provided the dormitory is restricted to students who do not have their families living with them), fraternity and sorority houses, and on-campus residential quarters used exclusively for those in religious orders who are attending college. College dormitory housing includes university-owned, on-campus and off-campus housing for unmarried residents.
Includes military personnel living in barracks and dormitories on base, transient quarters on base for temporary residents (both civilian and military), and military ships. However, patients in military hospitals receiving treatment for chronic diseases or who had no usual home elsewhere, and people being held in military disciplinary barracks were included as part of the institutionalized population.
Agriculture workers' dormitories
Includes people in migratory farm workers camps on farms, bunkhouses for ranch hands, and other dormitories on farms, such as those on "tree farms." (A tree farm is an area of forest land managed to ensure continuous commercial production.)
Other workers' dormitories
Includes people in logging camps, construction workers camps, firehouse dormitories, job-training camps, energy enclaves (Alaska only), and nonfarm migratory workers camps (for example, workers in mineral and mining camps).
Dormitories for nurses and interns in general and military hospitals
Includes group quarters for nurses and other staff members, excluding patients. If not shown separately, dormitories for nurses and interns in general and military hospitals are included in the category "Staff Residents of Institutions."
Job corps and vocational training facilities
Includes facilities that provide a full-time, year-round residential program offering a comprehensive array of training, education, and supportive services, including supervised dormitory housing, meals, and counseling for at-risk youth ages 16 through 24.
Emergency and transitional shelters (with sleeping facilities)
Includes people without conventional housing who stayed overnight on March 27, 2000, in permanent and emergency housing, missions, Salvation Army shelters, transitional shelters, hotels and motels used to shelter people without conventional housing, and similar places known to have people without conventional housing staying overnight. Also included are shelters that operate on a first come, first-serve basis where people must leave in the morning and have no guaranteed bed for the next night OR where people know that they have a bed for a specified period of time (even if they leave the building every day). Shelters also include facilities that provide temporary shelter during extremely cold weather (such as churches). If shown, this category also includes shelters for children who are runaways, neglected, or without conventional housing.
Shelters for children who are runaways, neglected, or without conventional housing
Includes shelters/group homes that provide temporary sleeping facilities for juveniles. In census products, this category is included with emergency and transitional housing.
Shelters for abused women (shelters against domestic violence or family crisis centers)
Includes community-based homes or shelters that provide domiciliary care for women who have sought shelter from family violence and who may have been physically abused. Most shelters also provide care for children of abused women. These shelters may provide social services, meals, psychiatric treatment, and counseling. In census products, this category is included with "other noninstitutional group quarters."
Includes soup kitchens, food lines, and programs distributing prepared breakfasts, lunches, or dinners on March 28, 2000. These programs may be organized as food service lines, bag or box lunches, or tables where people are seated, then served by program personnel. These programs may or may not have a place for clients to sit and eat the meal. In census products, this category is included with "other noninstitutional group quarters." This category excludes regularly scheduled mobile food vans.
Regularly scheduled mobile food vans
Includes mobile food vans that are regularly scheduled to visit designated street locations for the primary purpose of providing food to people without conventional housing. In census products, this category is included with "other noninstitutional group quarters."
Targeted nonsheltered outdoor locations
Includes geographically identifiable outdoor locations open to the elements where there is evidence that people who do not usually receive services at soup kitchens, shelters, and mobile food vans lived on March 29, 2000, without paying to stay there. Sites must have a specific location description that allowed a census enumeration team to physically locate the site; for example, "the Brooklyn Bridge at the corner of Bristol Drive" or "the 700 block of Taylor Street behind the old warehouse." Excludes pay-for-use campgrounds; drop-in centers; post offices; hospital emergency rooms; and commercial sites, including all-night theaters and all-night diners. In census products, this category is included with "other noninstitutional group quarters."
Crews of maritime vessels
Includes officers, crew members, and passengers of maritime U.S. flag vessels. All ocean-going and Great Lakes ships are included.
Residential facilities providing "protective oversight"
Includes facilities providing assistance to people with disabilities.
Staff residents of institutions
Includes staff residing in military and nonmilitary group quarters on institutional grounds who provide formally authorized, supervised care or custody for the institutionalized population.
Other nonhousehold living situations
Includes people with no usual home elsewhere enumerated at locations such as YMCAs, YWCAs, and hostels. People enumerated at those places that did not have a usual home elsewhere are included in this category.
Living quarters for victims of natural disasters
Includes living quarters for people temporarily displaced by natural disasters.
For Census 2000, the definition of the institutionalized population was consistent with the definition used in the 1990 census. As in 1990, the definition of "care" only includes people under organized medical or formally authorized, supervised care or custody.
In Census 2000, the 1990 and 1980 rule of classifying ten or more unrelated people living together as living in noninstitutional group quarters was dropped. In 1970, the criteria was six or more unrelated people.
Several changes have occurred in the tabulation of specific types of group quarters. In Census 2000, police lockups were included with local jails and other confinement facilities, and homes for unwed mothers were included in "Other group homes;" in 1990, these categories were shown separately. For the first time, Census 2000 tabulates separately the following types of group quarters: military hospitals or wards for the chronically ill, other hospitals or wards for the chronically ill, hospices or homes for the chronically ill, wards in military hospitals with patients who have no usual home elsewhere, wards in general hospitals with patients who have no usual home elsewhere, and job corps and vocational training facilities. For Census 2000, rooming and boarding houses were classified as housing units rather than group quarters as in 1990.
As in 1990, workers dormitories were classified as group quarters regardless of the number of people sharing the dormitory. In 1980, ten or more unrelated people had to share the dorm for it to be classified as a group quarters. In 1960, data on people in military barracks were shown only for men. In subsequent censuses, they include both men and women.
The phrase "institutionalized persons" in 1990 data products was changed to "institutionalized population" for Census 2000. In 1990, the Census Bureau used the phrase "other persons in group quarters" for people living in noninstitutional group quarters. In 2000, this group is referred to as the "noninstitutionalized population." The phrase "staff residents" was used for staff living in institutions in both 1990 and 2000.
In Census 2000, the category "emergency and transitional shelters" includes emergency shelters, transitional shelters, and shelters for children who are runaways, neglected, or without conventional housing. Those people tabulated at shelters for abused women, soup kitchens, regularly scheduled mobile food vans, and targeted nonsheltered outdoor locations were included in the category "other noninstitutional group quarters." Each of these categories were enumerated from March 27-29, 2000, during Service-Based enumeration. (For more information on the "Service- Based Enumeration" operation, see "Collection and Processing Procedures.")
For more information on group quarters, please telephone 301-457-2378.
