blackvoicenews.com

Counting The "Hard to Count"

By Chris Levister –

It’s that time: the once-a-decade moment when the U.S. Census Bureau takes a snapshot of America.

“It’s the equivalent of a country going to war in terms of what’s required in resource and energy,” says Ardess Lilly, Census Partnership Coordinator for the Los Angeles region, which includes Riverside and San Bernardino Counties.

With an estimated 310 million people residing in the United States the herculean task of manually counting each person is one of the largest, most arduous processes the government undertakes.

The census is a complex and costly (an estimated $14 billion), operation but the stakes are high. The results often determine a community’s funding for roads, hospitals, schools and congressional representation.

The census has long disproportionately missed minorities. In 2000 the bureau noted, about 1.3 million people were over counted, mostly because of duplicate counts of Whites with multiple homes while more than 4.5 million Blacks and Hispanics were never counted.

Lilly, says the run up to Census Day, April 1, 2010 will involve a full court press – and vast strategies – to assure the maximum number of hard-to-count individuals are counted.

“We have hundreds of people running across the region verifying addresses and updating our data base. As the Black community continues to suffer disproportionately from job losses, foreclosures and other ravages of the great recession, it is vitally important that we not have a repeat of the 2000 census,” said Lilly.

But the Census Bureau can’t count whom they can’t find. For a long time racial minority groups have shied away from giving the government the information they needed to get a more accurate count of the country’s population by not responding to mailed questionnaires.

Many African Americans harbor suspicion of filling out a government questionnaire, Lilly said.

That often means resorting to doorto door-surveys.

The result? “You end up with a census worker coming in and asking you questions.”

Fewer than 60 percent of African Americans returned their 2000 Census questionnaires compared to 77.5% of Whites, according to the Census Bureau.

Mid March the Census Bureau will start by mailing 145 million households a questionnaire with 10 questions that will be available in multiple languages.

The questionnaires, which every citizen will be required to answer by law, will provide the Bureau with the bulk of it’s data. Lilly stresses that the form will only take ten minutes to complete and all responses will be used for statistical purposes only.

“Many Black men avoid the census because of an erroneous belief that the information will be shared with law enforcement officials. The problem can be compounded when men are heads of households because a decision to ignore the census could mean the entire family goes uncounted.

Such fears are unwarranted, Lilly said. Federal law prohibits sharing census information about individuals and once personal data go in, only information about towns and cities can come out.

About 40 percent of America's prison population is made up of African-Americans. It's 60 percent if you include Hispanics, and here's the rub, says Ben Jealous, president of the NAACP.

“If a prisoner is from, let's say, Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta or San Bernardino, but is actually in prison somewhere else in the state or even out of state, is that person counted as a resident of that city or is he counted as a resident of the place where he's imprisoned? This is a very troubling issue thanks to mandatory sentencing,” Jealous said.

The avalanche of recession driven foreclosures is also a built-in undercount, especially in hard-hit foreclosure-prone states like California (Inland Empire), Arizona, Nevada and Florida, as families move in with relatives or are left homeless.

In particular, foreclosures have had a disproportionate impact on communities of color. In houses and rentals where families are doubling up to account for the growing homeless, many people may be reluctant to confess the exact number of persons they have living in a single unit. Lilly explains, many continue to nurse the hope that this crisis is only temporary, but whatever their status it is vital that they be included in the census count.

“You got a kid living on the fringes, he’s not in the home all of the time; a daughter with children living with parents because she’s lost her home and Uncle Ted who lost his job is living in the converted garage – count them.”

When it comes to the census and African Americans, a consortium of Black churches in the Inland Empire is calling on the community to “stand up and be counted”. The Census Bureau hopes a history of faith-based trust combined with a massive church-led campaign will cut through long held suspicions of government officials and census takers. If it makes them feel better, Lilly says congregants can bring the questionnaires to church and put them in the collection plate, a “second offering” of sorts. “Whatever it takes to get an accurate count.”

“We must stop fearing (government) and be participants and take control of the process,” said Pastor Raymond Turner of the Inland Empire Concerned Black Churches.

Non-response follow up is April 10 when some 250 volunteers and enumerators will conduct a massive community canvas.

“We are particularly interested in getting African-American males to help distribute the census and get the word out because if the community sees African-Americans engaged, chances are,” says Lilly, “the rest of the community will jump on board.”