Posted 11:37 pm Monday, March 08, 2010
Many Rural East Texans Can Expect Census Visit
By CASEY MURPHY
Staff Writer
Ready or not, here they come.
Staff Writer
Ready or not, here they come.
If you live in a rural area without a numbered street address, you could be getting a visit this month from a U.S. Census worker.
They began hitting the country roads this week to hand deliver one million 2010 Census questionnaires to Texas households in rural areas to update hard-to-register addresses and to ensure that each home receives a Census form.
It is the first major operation of the 2010 Census to count nearly four million rural residents in Texas and 25 million across the country, said Kimberly Murphy, media specialist for the Dallas Regional Census Center. Hand delivery of the forms will continue through March and will cover almost two-thirds of the geography of Texas, she said in a prepared statement.
The in-person visits are necessary because the Census Bureau relies on counting individuals at specific physical addresses to prevent counting people twice, she said. During the deliveries, Census workers will not ask for any information but instead, will only ask residents to complete the 10-question form and mail it back. If no one is home, the Census enumerator will leave the questionnaire in a plastic bag on or near the doorknob.
The rest of the 8.2 million households in Texas will receive the questionnaires by mail about the third week in March.
"We're going to bring it right to your door," Dallas Regional Census Director Gabriel Sanchez said. "It will either come in the mail or we are going to take the extra step of delivering it in person."
As many as 6,000 Census workers and support staff will work this month to deliver questionnaires.
Census workers who come to your door can be identified by their government identification badges, a confidentiality notice in their possession and the questionnaire. They will not ask to come inside your home.
Census Day is April 1, the day the law requires you to be counted at the address where you reside. In mid-March, Census forms will be mailed to 145 million households in the country, the largest mass mailing in the history of the U.S. and the least expensive way to reach 90 percent of residents, Ms. Murphy said.
The Census is especially important to farm and rural communities, which grew much slower than the rest of Texas. The state's overall population grew by 12.7 percent from 2000 to 2005, nearly twice the national rate, she said. Of Texas' estimated 24.8 million people, fewer than four million live in rural areas. About 93 rural counties lacking a metropolitan area lost population between 2000 and 2005, according to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts study of U.S. Census data.
Congressional representation for a state is dependent on the Census count and the allocation of federal funds is based in part on population figures so the Census is vital for rural Texas and its many communities, Ms. Murphy said.
In 2008, the federal government spent billions of dollars on rural and farm programs, including $909 million in crop insurance, $42 million in livestock compensation programs, $279 million in crop disaster assistance and $21 million in rural rent assistance, she reported.
"Promoting the Census in rural Texas is one way to ensure the continued economic vitality of one of the nation's most important agricultural and cultural areas," Ms. Murphy said.
