2020 Census moves into final months as responses lag in Yachats and Lincoln County

 

By DANA TIMS/YachatsNews.com

More than a few Yachats-area households can expect a visit in coming weeks from 2020 Census takers.

That’s because just 21 percent of Yachats-area households have taken a few minutes to go online and fill out Census forms that are required by law to be submitted every 10 years.

And just in case anyone needs further motivation, they will soon find local Census takers knocking on their door, ready to explain why the Census matters.

“A lot of the funding that comes from federal, state and local governments is based on Census information,” said Noel McIntosh of Yachats, a retired physician and international public health professor, who has been following Census data and urging friends and neighbors to complete the online form. “Yachats is a small town, but it’s still important that we get what we deserve.”

Nationally, 62.3 percent of households have already answered questions involving the name, age, race and gender of people living with them, according to the Census’ official website.

That’s slightly below Oregon’s statewide figure of 65.6 percent.

Coastal return figures vary. The total for throughout Lincoln County is 43 percent. Newport stands at 55 percent, ahead of Waldport’s 32 percent, Lincoln City’s 42 percent, Depoe Bay’s 30 percent and Yachats’ 21 percent. Florence, in Lane County, is the highest at 63 percent.

Part of the issue in Yachats is that 2020 Census questionnaires were mailed only to street addressed and not delivered to post office boxes.

But the push to expand participation took on more urgency last week, when the Trump Administration said the Census Bureau would end all counting efforts for the 2020 census on Sept. 30, a month sooner than previously announced.

That includes critical door-knocking efforts and collecting responses online, over the phone and by mail.

The latest updates to the bureau’s plans are part of efforts to “accelerate the completion of data collection and apportionment counts by our statutory deadline of Dec. 31, 2020, as required by law and directed by the Secretary of Commerce” who oversees the bureau, Census Director Steven Dillingham said in the written statement posted on the bureau’s website.

But some politicians and former Census directors said the last-minute changes to the count threaten the accuracy of population numbers used to determine the distribution of political representation and federal funding for the next decade.

With roughly 4 out of 10 households nationwide yet to be counted, and already delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, the bureau now has less than two months left to try to reach people of color, immigrants, renters, rural residents and other members of historically undercounted groups who are not likely to fill out a census form on their own.

By law, Census responses are safe, secure and confidential.

In-person outreach begins Tuesday

A small army of volunteer Census takers is preparing to deploy in communities across the country, Misty D. Slater, a U.S. Census Bureau spokeswoman, told YachatsNews.

While the Yachats area has already met its goal for recruits, volunteers and temporary Census employees must go through an in-person orientation session that will include instructions on how to operate a device they’ll carry to help record information.

All volunteers will be issued personal protective equipment to ward off the coronavirus and will receive instruction on social distancing and other health and safety protocols before beginning their work in neighborhoods, Slater said.

The formally named “Nonresponse Follow-up Operation” begins Tuesday, she said.

A national census, mandated by the U.S. Constitution, has been held every 10 years since 1790. Its goal is to provide a complete and accurate count of all those living in the United States and its five territories.

Census information is considered critical in determining congressional representation. It also provides the basis for the allotment of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding.

All of which is why McIntosh wants to get the word out to help boost Yachats’ so-far meager Census response.

“It takes just a little time to answer these questions,” he said. “But the end result is very important to places like Yachats.”