Detailed exposition of these problems is more appropriate to another forum. The DSF turned out to be far less than an accurate statement of the addresses to which mail is currently delivered. It was months and even years behind in some jurisdictions. In fact, at this point in time, no group within the Census Bureau is truly responsible for looking at housing as an active concept. In the decennial census and in a sampling frame for surveys, identified housing units serve as the mechanism for finding and enumerating people.
Analytic issues are secondary.
The program has consistently run late and failed to meet announced time lines. Because of these problems, identified in a MAF reengineering activity in 1997, the Bureau decided to conduct a block canvass , in which census enumerators went through every block in the areas with city style addresses, comparing the MAF to the street and making corrections. This work was done over the past several months. In April of this year, the Bureau announced a special program , providing for another round of LUCA in the winter of 2000, to deal with this problem. As originally conceptualized, the MAF is planned to be a continuously updated file.