Small and Illegal Places Pose Challenge for Census Takers

"As the federal Census Bureau starts its most ambitious effort ever to count the country, no other city presents a bigger challenge than New York, with its huge immigrant population crammed into easily missed and often illegal nooks and crannies.

In all, the city has provided Census officials the addresses of at least 127,000 apartments or homes - nearly 4 percent of all the housing in the city - that the bureau did not have. Most of the addresses are in one, two and three-family homes that had been subdivided, legally and illegally."

Historically, census response rates have been lower in New York City than other American cities, and officials expect a similar challenge during this year's decennial Census.