I’d ask for chapter and verse before taking this one at face value.
I’m both ignorant of the law and unsure of the following - but it has a link. It says that this only allows census workers onto the grounds, not into individual units. This is one of the comments on the ajc page.
This is a pretty liberal reading of the code! The relevant language is at Title 13, Chapter 7, Subchapter II, § 223 of the US Code. The section prevents the owner or manger of “any hotel, apartment house, boarding or lodging house, tenement, or other building” from refusing to provide a list of the buildings occupants or providing access to “such premises”. This means a building’s owner or manger cannot refuse to let a census worker into or out of the building and cannot refuse to provide a list of occupants for the purpose of the census count. The penalty for refusal is $500. No where in the section does it authorize entry into individual apartments, lodgings, or “living quarters”.
The relevant code section is found at: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode13/usc_sec_13_00000223—-000-.html