This report is the third by the U.S. Census Bureau focusing on the population in emergency and transitional shelters and their demographic characteristics.  Special reports were written after the 2000 and 2010 Censuses were conducted.  The 2020 report is formatted similarly to the 2010 report for easier comparison. According to the 2020 Census, there were 188,889 people in emergency and transitional shelters in the United States. This amounted to 2.3 percent of the 8.2 million people counted in group quarters (GQs) in the 2020 Census.

Emergency and transitional shelter data were collected as part of service-based enumeration (SBE) during the 2020 Census Group Quarters operations. The 2020 SBE provided an opportunity for people without conventional housing or people experiencing homelessness to be included in the census by enumerating them at places where they received services or at preidentified outdoor locations. In addition to emergency and transitional shelters, people were enumerated at soup kitchens, regularly scheduled food vans, and targeted nonsheltered outdoor locations (e.g., people staying outside in certain preidentified places like encampments under bridges or in parking lots).