Census Takers to Start Follow Up With Non-responding Households in Select Locations:
The U.S. Census Bureau announced that it will begin following up in Wichita.
Starting the week of July 20, Census takers will begin interviewing households in Wichita.
If you don’t want a Census worker to come to your home, you still have time to respond by completing and mailing your paper questionnaire, by responding online at 2020census.gov, or by phone at 844-330-2020. Households can also respond online or by phone in one of 13 languages and find assistance in many more. Those that respond will not need to be visited to obtain their Census response.
What You Can Expect?
The Census Bureau will provide face masks to census takers and requires that census takers wear a mask while conducting their work. They will follow CDC and local public health guidelines when they visit.
If no one is home when the Census taker visits, the Census taker will leave a notice of their visit with information about how to respond online, by phone or by mail. People are encouraged to cooperate with census takers and ensure that everyone who was living in their household as of April 1, 2020, is counted.
How to Identify
Census Takers
Census takers can be easily identified by a valid government ID badge with their photograph, a U.S. Department of Commerce watermark, and an expiration date on the badge. To confirm a Census taker’s identity, the public may contact their regional Census center to speak with a Census Bureau representative.
Why the Census Matters
Completing the 2020 Census is crucial to bringing resources to the African-American community
In 2010, the Census undercounted the African-American population by our communities stand to lose over $3.3 billion in crucial funding. Not just in 2010, the African-American population has been historically undercounted in the decennial Census, disadvantaging our families, communities, and neighborhoods.
The Census only happens every 10 years and it completely decides where federal funding is going to go in our country, and we desperately need funding in Wichita, in Kansas City, in all of the cities The Community Voice serves. So if we don’t get this right, it could amount to billions of dollars lost for critical programs like SNAP, like roads, hospitals, schools, Medicaid, Medicare, all services we use are definitely at risk if we don’t get this right.
About 75% of young African-American children were overlooked by the 2010 Census, which is roughly twice the rate for young, non-Hispanic, White children. African-American men have been historically undercounted in greater numbers than men of other racial or ethnic groups.
During the recent civil unrest in the country, we complained about injustice. A real injustice would be for the African-American community to not get its fair share of federal money and one of the main reasons that might happen is because we’re undercounted.
Completing the Census is easy and it take less than 10 minutes to complete.
It’s easy.
It’s important. And
It’s vital for everyone
to respond.