Editor's
note: Last
week's planned Census News Brief went by the wayside in the aftermath of the severe Nor'easter that hit
southern Connecticut last week, knocking out power and cable to your
editor's home city for days.
On March 15, census forms
began arriving in about 120 million mailboxes nationwide that are in the
"mail-out/mail-back" universe, the largest of several counting
operations that covers most urban and suburban communities. At a
press briefing that day, Census Director Robert Groves called the 2010
census form "one of the shortest forms in our lifetime," noting that the
length is similar to the first enumeration in 1790 designed with the
help of Founding Fathers James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. The
director said it costs 42 cents for a household to return its
questionnaire by mail, but $57 for the Census Bureau to send an
enumerator to each household that fails to do so.
On March
8, the House Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National
Archives held a field hearing in Cincinnati, Ohio, to review plans for
counting hard-to-count populations "with special living
conditions." Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory, who testified at the
hearing, chairs the U.S. Conference of Mayors 2010 Census Task
Force. The Service-based
Enumeration is scheduled for March 29 - 31, when census workers will
visit
homeless shelters, outdoor locations, mobile food vans, and food
kitchens to collect census data from people without a usual place of
residence.
The Enumeration at Transitory Locations, which includes migrant worker
camps, traveling carnivals, marinas, and short-term RV parks, will take
place March 22 - April 16. A full set of testimony is
available on the subcommittee's web site.
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CENSUS BUREAU: BAR CODE, NOT
MAILING ADDRESS, WILL PUT PEOPLE IN CORRECT CITY
HOMELAND SECURITY: IMMIGRATION
ENFORCEMENT
WILL NOT "INTERFERE" WITH CENSUS
PLUS:
- CENSUS
OPERATIONS UPDATE: "Participation Rates" to be posted; QACs
and Be Counted sites open; and more.
- LEGISLATIVE
ROUND-UP: House passes deceptive census mailing bill;
subcommittee hearing scheduled.
- STAKEHOLDER SPOTLIGHT: National
Week of Action begins; canvassing small businesses in New Orleans;
Caribbean American leaders complete forms on-air; Latino 2010 Census
Summit; and more.
- WHAT'S NEW? RESOURCES FOR CENSUS ADVOCATES: Video
blog for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing; Brookings analysis of
census-driven federal program allocations; new fact sheets.
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BAR
CODE WILL PUT PEOPLE IN CORRECT PLACE, EVEN IF
MAILING ADDRESS SHOWS
WRONG CITY, CENSUS SAYS
Census officials moved quickly to quell concerns in some
communities where the mailing address on census forms used an incorrect
city, telling residents they would be counted in the correct
jurisdiction when the Census Bureau tabulates responses and publishes
data. For example, the Chicago
Tribune reported that some residents living in the city's
outskirts received census forms listing their address as Bedford Park,
an adjoining suburb (chicagotribune.com, 3/18/10).
"Don't worry," Dr. Groves wrote in The Director's Blog on
March 17, noting that the mailing address and physical location of a
house were different for census purposes. People will be counted
"in the jurisdiction where your home is physically located," the
director said. Addresses in a single ZIP code were labeled using a
single city name to streamline delivery for the "largest single
[mailing] ever undertaken by the United States," Dr. Groves noted.
The
Postal Service uses multiple city names to deliver mail when a ZIP code
crosses jurisdictional boundaries, he said. Each census form has a
unique bar code that is used to check-in forms as they are returned by
mail; the bar code is tied to a mailing address that includes the city
or town associated with the physical location of the home. The
director urged people not to cross off the address or bar code on their
questionnaire.
Census officials sent an e-mail to 20,000 elected
officials nationwide and the 200,000 national and local census partner
organizations, explaining the issue and emphasizing the importance of
mailing back forms even if the mailing address appears to be
incorrect. The Census Bureau also is preparing flyers, door
hangers, radio scripts, and other materials to explain the situation in
areas confused by the mailing address. Senior bureau staff said
they believe the mailing address anomaly affected less than one percent
of questionnaires.
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NAPOLITANO
SAYS DHS AND ICE ACTIVITIES
WILL NOT "INTERFERE" WITH CENSUS
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet
Napolitano told lawmakers that the department is "committed to working
with the Census Bureau to ensure our enforcement responsibilities do not
interfere" with "a thorough and accurate" census.
In a March 16
letter to members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Secretary
assured legislators that personal census responses "will not be shared
with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and may not be used
for immigration enforcement purposes." The Census Act (13 U.S.C.
§§8 & 9) prohibits the Census Bureau from revealing any personally
identifiable information collected in the census and provides that
personal census responses may not be used against an individual, are
immune from legal process, and may not be admitted as evidence (without
an individual's consent) in any judicial or administrative proceeding.
The
letter followed a meeting between Hispanic lawmakers and President
Obama; at that March 11 meeting, the lawmakers expressed concern that
continued immigration raids would discourage immigrants from
participating in the census. Secretary Napolitano reiterated that
neither the Commerce Department nor the Census Bureau would ask ICE to
suspend immigration enforcement during the census. She
acknowledged for the first time, however, that the two executive branch
departments were working together to ensure that immigration-related
activities "do not affect [the Census Bureau's] ability to collect
accurate and comprehensive data for the census."
In 2007,
then-Deputy Census Director Preston Jay Waite noted in an Associated Press interview (8/17/07)
that the Immigration and Naturalization Service did not conduct
immigration raids during the 2000 census (although the agency never
declared an official moratorium on raids), suggesting that such
activities could dampen cooperation among undocumented residents.
The AP article quoted an ICE spokesman as saying that any suspension of
raids would require discussion "at the highest levels of both
agencies." Rep. Candice Miller (R-MI), sponsor of a resolution
that would amend the Constitution to exclude non-citizens from the
apportionment base, sharply criticized the Census Bureau, saying, "[T]he
American people have grown sick and tired of their immigration laws not
being enforced." A day later, ICE officials, in response to
additional media inquiries, clarified the agency's position by saying,
"We would not even consider scaling back our efforts." Then-Census
Director C. Louis Kincannon confirmed at the time that the Census
Bureau had not asked the immigration agency to suspend raids during the
census.
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CENSUS
OPERATIONS UPDATE
"Take
10 Challenge" program starts March 22: The Census Bureau
will begin posting "participation rates" for states and localities, to
allow communities to track the progress of the mail-out/mail-back
operation, beginning on March 22. The bureau will update the rates
daily, Monday through Friday. "Participation rates" will exclude
questionnaires returned by the Postal Service as "undeliverable as
addressed" from the calculation of the percent of housing units that
have mailed back a form. The link to the "Take 10 Challenge" Map, a
reference to the 10 minutes the agency says it will take households to
fill out their census forms, is http://2010.census.gov/2010census/take10map/.
QAC and Be Counted
sites open: The Census Bureau has opened 30,000
Questionnaire Assistance Centers (QAC) and an additional 10,000 Be
Counted sites across the country. (Be Counted forms also are
available at all QACs.) QACs are staffed by sworn, trained Census
Bureau employees, while unstaffed Be Counted sites offer forms in six
languages. People should use Be Counted forms if they did not
receive a form at their home or if they believe the questionnaire
completed for their place of residence did not include them. The
slightly modified form asks respondents for their address, which the
Census Bureau must match to an address on the master list or verify with
a field visit during a later operation.
Site locations, hours of
operation, and directions are posted on the 2010 census web site at http://2010.census.gov/2010census/take10map/;
click on "Help Centers" and enter a ZIP code, city, or state to pull up
an interactive map and sites nearest you.
Telephone Questionnaire Assistance
(TQA) centers open for business: The Census Bureau has
activated toll-free assistance lines to answer questions about the
census and provide assistance in filling out the forms. The
English-language number is 1-866-872-6868; the TDD line for people with
hearing impairments is 1-866-783-2010. Separate assistance lines
for assistance in Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Russian (the
additional languages in which official census forms are printed) are
posted at http://2010.census.gov/2010census/contact/index.php.
People may provide their census answers by phone through April 11 if
they provide the unique identification code on the form sent to their
address. After that date, the Census Bureau will accept responses
by telephone without the identifying code.
"March to the Mailbox" activities
planned: The Census Bureau is planning a final push to
motivate people to mail back their forms, with activities in
low-responding census tracts across the country on Saturday, April
10. The "March to the Mailbox" campaign will mobilize partner
organizations and volunteers to help stage parades, rallies, marches,
and community canvassing events in about 6,000 neighborhoods with low
"participation rates." The bureau will provide signs, fliers,
parade banners, and other promotional materials for the designated
sites, highlighting the message that it is not too late to mail back a
census form. The Census Bureau will stop accepting mailed
questionnaires in late April and prepare for door-to-door visits to
unresponsive homes starting May 1.
Dora the Explorer helps kick off
Children Count Too initiative: Nickelodeon character Dora the Explorer helped the Census
Bureau kick off its Children Count
Too public awareness campaign on March 9 at Mary's Center, a
nonprofit maternal and child care center serving immigrant families in
Washington, DC. Nickelodeon has produced TV and radio PSAs, Web
buttons, and fact sheets featuring Dora and her friends; the materials
are available in English and Spanish. Mead Johnson Nutrition
Company, which specializes in infant and child nutrition, is supporting
the effort by communicating to its customers the importance of including
children, especially newborns and infants, on census forms.
The
Leadership Conference Education Fund took great photos of the event. See the February 18 Census News Brief #88 for additional
information on the undercount of children in the census.
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LEGISLATIVE
ROUND-UP
House
approves bill to ban deceptive "census" mailings: On March
10, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously (416-0) approved a
bill to prohibit deceptive mailings designed to look like official
Census Bureau mailings. The "Prevent Deceptive Census Look-Alike
Mailings Act" (H.R. 4621) would require organizations that use the word
"Census" on their mailings to indicate clearly that the item is not from
or affiliated with the federal government and to include the sender's
name and address. The bill also received bipartisan support in the
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which unanimously
approved the measure on March 4.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), the
bill's sponsor, said that mailings "purporting to be an official
document ... deliberately reduce the effectiveness of the authentic
Census - which costs taxpayers money. It's not right, and this
bill will help prevent that confusion."
The House-passed bill was
referred to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs; there is no companion Senate measure yet. For more
information on the legislation, see the February 10 Census News Brief #87 on The Census Project website.
House
panel schedules hearing on Census Bureau's readiness for count: The House Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National
Archives, chaired by Rep. William "Lacy" Clay (D-MO), will hold a
hearing on March 25 titled, "The 2010 Census: An Assessment of the
Census Bureau's Preparedness." Representatives from the Census
Bureau, Commerce Department's Office of the Inspector General, and U.S.
Government Accountability Office are expected to testify. The
hearing is scheduled for 2:00PM in Room 2154 Rayburn House Office
Building.
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STAKEHOLDER
SPOTLIGHT
Latino civic, political, and faith leaders held a Latino 2010 Census
Summit in Washington, DC on March 17 to highlight the community's
"unity and collaboration" in support of the census and to issue a "Call
to Action for all Latinos to be counted in Census 2010." Census
Director Groves joined members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and
heads of major Hispanic organizations for a program of panel
discussions, census campaign promotional displays, and a press
conference.
The Leadership Conference Education Fund and its four national
census partners (NAACP; NALEO; AAJC; NCAI) are launching a National Week of Action (March 22 -
27) to encourage census participation. Activities will include
block parties, festivals, assistance forums, and press conferences to
build excitement and make a push for people in historically
hard-to-count communities to fill out and mail back their forms by April
1. The collaborative census campaign also organized Census Faith Weekend activities
yesterday and today, distributing palm cards in nine languages and
preparing sample articles for church bulletins.
The University
of Michigan sponsored a census ad video
contest to promote awareness of the count among college students and
encourage participation. The university is offering a total of
$3,000 in prizes to the winning one-minute ads. While only members
of the university community were allowed to vote, the public can view
the videos on-line at http://census.umich.edu/.
Students living on-campus at colleges and universities are counted as
part of the Group Quarters Enumeration, which runs from March 30 - May
14. Students who live off-campus are counted at their house or
apartment as part of the mail-out/mail-back operation, not at their
parents' home (unless they live with their parents while attending
school).
Moving
Forward Gulf Coast, Inc. began its 2010 census media campaign,
visiting small businesses in New Orleans with "Mobile remote" technology
that allowed business owners to promote the census through live radio
spots. The nonprofit organization, dedicated to rebuilding
communities hard-hit by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, will expand the
campaign with additional canvassing in New Orleans, Moss Point, and
Mobile, AL, on March 27.
Caribbean American civic leaders in
South Florida completed their 2010 census forms during a live radio
broadcast (WZAB
880 AM) on March 20. Caribbean Riddims radio show host and
producer Eddy Edwards and
attorney Marlon Hill of The Peoples Politics encouraged listeners to fill out their own forms and to pass along the
message, "I counted today, I have the power!" Mr. Edwards said
that he hoped the live call to action would contribute to a higher
"level of trust and confidence in the [census] process." The
weekly program reaches listeners in Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach
counties and The Bahamas. Also in Miami, Caribbean American
organizations teamed up with national census advocates to produce Public
Service Announcements and print 35,000 grocery bags displaying a 2010
census logo, aimed at boosting response among Haitian Americans.
Reminder ... Univision, the
Spanish-language media company, will air a half-hour long program on March 27 to provide instructions
on how to fill out the census questionnaire. The program will run
at 11:00AM Eastern, 10:00AM Central, and 11:00AM Pacific time.
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WHAT'S
NEW?
RESOURCES
FOR CENSUS ADVOCATES
? The The Metropolitan
Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, which provides research and policy ideas to help
decision makers address the needs of metropolitan areas, released its
report, Counting for Dollars: The Role
of the Decennial Census in the Geographic Distribution of Federal
Funds. The analysis, authored by MPP Fellow Andrew Reamer,
found that nearly $447 billion were distributed through 215 federal
domestic assistance programs to states and localities in FY2008 based,
in whole or in part, on decennial census results. The average
national per capita distribution was $1,469, ranging from a high of
$4,656 per capita in the District of Columbia to a low of $742 per
capita in Nevada.
"Because the population count is so critical to
the process of allocating such a large portion of federal assistance
dollars, our report demonstrates how important an accurate 2010 census
is," Dr. Reamer said. The report reviews
census-driven
federal program funding for Fiscal Year 2008, the latest data available,
and includes program-by-program allocation tables for states, the 200
largest counties, and the 100 largest metropolitan areas.
?
The ya es hora. HAGASE CONTAR! campaign is fielding a toll-free telephone hotline to answer questions
about filling out the census form. Bilingual (English/Spanish)
assistance is available by calling 877-EL-CENSO/877-352-3676.
?
The Disability
Policy Consortium, Inc., a
Boston-based organization of volunteer disability rights activities, has
developed a "vlog" (video blog) on the importance of the census for the
Deaf and Hard of Hearing community. The video is in American Sign
Language, with captioning. DPC is a grantee of the Massachusetts
Census Equity Fund, a collaborative of foundations in the state that is
supporting efforts to achieve an accurate count. Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iGfvYNszRg to view the video.
? The Census 2010 Hard To
Count Mapping Site, a project of the City University of New York
Mapping Service at the Graduate Center, has a new feature that allows
users to create a shortcut link to any spot on the map. On the
map, users should zoom to the area of interest, select a hard-to-count
layer from the legend (e.g. "Percent Unemployed"), then click the "Link
to the map" button in the upper right. The feature will allow
census advocates to share the specific link with colleagues via e-mail,
twitter, and other avenues of communication. For more new
features, click the Overview tab (upper right corner) and then the
What's New tab. The CUNY census map URL is www.CensusHardToCountMaps.org.
? LatinoJustice PRLDEF, a
national advocacy and educational organization that uses legal resources
to advance civil rights and civic participation for Latinos,
established a 2010 Census Latino Outreach and Civic Participation
Project. Go to http://latinojustice.org/civil_rights/census/ for materials and information that highlight the linkage between census
data and political empowerment.
? The Leadership
Conference Education Fund has posted new fact sheets on its
census campaign website that highlight the importance of an accurate
census to Native Americans, people with disabilities, and women.
For copies of these and other resources developed for the It's Time. Make
Yourself Count. campaign, go to http://www.civilrights.org/census/census-resources/.
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QUICK LINKS:
2010 Census Website: The
Census Bureau's new 2010 census website offers useful basic
information on the census process, as well as sample questionnaires,
information on job opportunities, and in-language materials. Add
it to
your "Bookmarks" bar to track mail response rates daily for your state
and locality starting in late March.
2010 Census en Espanol Website:
New official 2010 census Spanish language website.
2010 Census Jobs: Visit
this web page to download a Census Practice Test and find
information about the application process and a Local Census Office
near you.
The Census Project: Visit the Census Project website for
previous Census
News Briefs, fact sheets, and a weekly blog in support of an accurate 2010
census. Become a fan of the Census Project on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Census-Project/251237523383.
Census 2010 Interactive Hard
To Count Mapping Site: This new mapping site, developed by the City
University of New York Mapping Services at the Graduate Center, allows
users to pinpoint hard-to-count census tracts and identify the
socio-economic characteristics that contribute to difficult enumeration
conditions, allowing advocates to target outreach and tailor messages.
Leadership Conference
Education Fund: The LCEF
2010 Census campaign, "It's time.
Make yourself count." offers fact sheets, a toolkit, data on the
census undercount, and promotional materials to reach historically
hard-to-count communities.
Nonprofits Count: The
Nonprofit Voter Engagement Network's 2010 census campaign features fact
sheets, a toolkit, posters and swag, and state-specific resources to
help nonprofits promote census participation. Check the website
for information on webinars on important census topics.
ya es hora !HAGASE CONTAR¡:
Resources and promotional materials, in Spanish and English, targeting
the Latino population.
National Urban League:
This Census Information Center web page includes links to demographic
information on the Black population, job opportunities, and other 2010
census materials.
Fill in Our Future:
Multi-lingual clearinghouse for information and educational and
promotional materials targeting the Asian American and Native Hawaiian
and Pacific Islander populations, sponsored by the Asian American
Justice Center and its partner organizations.
Indian Country Counts:
Region-specific information, events, job listings, and tools for the
American Indian and Alaska Native populations.
Voto Latino: The
organization's census campaign, Be Counted! Represent!, includes an offer of 25 free iTunes
songs for those who pledge to fill out and mail back their census form.
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Census
News Briefs are prepared by Terri Ann Lowenthal,
an independent legislative and policy consultant specializing in the
census and federal statistics. All views expressed in the News
Briefs
are solely those of the author. Please direct questions about the
information in this News Brief to Ms. Lowenthal at TerriAnn2K@aol.com.
Please feel free to circulate this document to other interested
individuals and organizations. Ms. Lowenthal is a consultant to
the
nonpartisan Census Project, organized by the Communications Consortium
Media Center in Washington, DC. Previous Census News Briefs are
posted
at www.thecensusproject.org.
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Contact information:
TerriAnn2K@aol.com
(tel.) 203-353-4364 |
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