What is a "dwelling"?
A dwelling is an enclosed and independent place that is built, rebuilt, expanded or transformed or is used for living purposes with the condition of not being used for other means during the period of reference.
It is enclosed because it is delimited by conventional walls or of other type, and it is covered and allows an individual or a group of individuals room for sleeping, cooking or as a shelter separated of other collective members.
It is independent because its members do not have to go through any other dwellings to enter or leave the place where they live.
Dwellings are also those shared rooms for living purposes by (a) family(ies) that inhabit the space or isolated rooms close to it that where built next to a dwelling for living purposes and are destined to a family (rooms, kitchen, bathroom, etc.).
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Dwellings are also:
Mobile homes (tents, boats, caravans, containers, etc.), barracks and improvised constructions in places not destined for housing, but that during the census period were used as a housing facility by at least one family;
Constructions that were not built with the purpose for housing, but that have been rebuilt or transformed for housing purposes and that during the census period are occupied as such;
Collective dwellings (hotels, pensions and the like, homes, convents, prisons, etc.) functioning as such during the census period. As we will see below, these dwellings are collective dwellings and will be enumerated with the Collective Dwelling Questionnaire.
What is not considered a dwelling?
Sites built for housing but that at the census period are not being used for living purposes, such as, for example, an apartment built for housing but that is completely use as a doctor's office, or office, etc..
There are two types of dwellings for the census: single family dwelling and collective dwelling!
A dwelling is defined by:
-- the group of individuals that inhabit it
-- by its own characteristics.
Single Family Dwelling
A single-family dwelling is destined to house, usually, one family and it is not use for other means during the census period.
Single-family dwellings can be of two types:
Conventional dwelling- is a place that has a room or many rooms in a permanent fixed building or structure that has an independent entrance with direct access to a front yard or pathway in the interior of the building (staircase, corridor, or passage among others). Isolated rooms built with enough space or transformed to house conventional families are considered part of it.
Non-conventional dwellings- is a place that does not satisfy entirely the conditions of a conventional dwelling because of the precarious conditions of its construction, or because it is mobile or improvised or was not destined for housing but functions as a permanent residence of at least one family during the census period.
These should only be considered if they are occupied during the period of reference.
In this group are included shacks/rudimentary wooden houses, mobile housing units, improvised within a building or other inhabited place.
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Collective Dwellings
These are dwellings that house a big number of people or more people than one family and that during the census period are functioning, occupied or not by at least one or more individuals, independently if they are residents or are only present.
If a collective dwelling is used seasonally but during the census period is not functioning then it should not be enumerated.
Collective dwellings can be of two types:
Dwellings such as hotels and the like- a collective dwelling that in its entirety or in part has a fixed structure or a group of structures that are destined to lodge more than one family with no common goals and as per fee such as a hotel, a pension or guesthouse among others.
Communal quarters- a collective dwelling that in its entirety or in part has a fixed structure or a group of structures and it is inhabited by a larger group of people under the guide of an authority or common law, linked by a common objective or personal interest.
In this group are included institutions of social services (nursing homes, orphanages), education (boarding schools), health (hospitals, health centers), work, religion (convents, monasteries, etc.), military, prisons and other types (not mentioned before such as those of humanitarian character).