FAYETTEVILLE -- Looking for something to do while concert venues sit quiet, sports take a hiatus and crowds seem taboo?
Completing the U.S. census will fill a little time, census advocates suggest.
The U.S. Census Bureau has gone to unprecedented lengths to make answering the census easy and accessible, said Linda DeBerry, communications program manager for Fayetteville.
"They're really thinking outside the box for this one," she said.
The list of census questions is much shorter than in the past, with no questions about income, for instance. Anyone living at any given household can complete the census for everyone in the household, she said.
For the first time, the census can be completed online at 2020census.gov. Either a computer or smartphone will do. Connected computers are available at public libraries too, she said.
Another option is to complete the census by voice phone, said both DeBerry and Mireya Reith, founder of immigrant advocacy group Arkansas United.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, call (844) 330-2020 for English, (844) 468-2020 for Spanish, (844) 467-2020 for the hearing-impaired or check the census website for options that include: Mandarin or Cantonese Chinese, Arabic, Haitian Creole, Polish or 10 other languages.
There is always the mail-in option. The Census Bureau will mail forms to every household in which no one answered online or by telephone. That will come after July 31. The bureau warns on its website a legitimate census form will never ask for information such as Social Security numbers. Anyone replying by mail needs to beware of frauds trying to get personal financial information, the bureau's website says. Also, neighborhoods identified as having limited internet access will get forms in the mail early, the bureau's website says.
Act now and you will stop a census taker going door to door from knocking on your door, both DeBerry and Reith said.
"I don't want a census taker coming to my door. I have lots of dogs," DeBerry said.
Besides leaving many people stuck at home with few entertainment options, the coronavirus outbreak starkly shows the need to fill out the census and get this region the most accurate count possible, Reith said.
"Want to keep those health clinics and other things we're depending on open during a crisis like this?" Reith said. "Fill out the census. Keep those tax dollars coming here."
Federal taxpayer dollars are often distributed on the basis of population, she said. The more complete the census count, the more its share of dollars the region will receive.
And there is always the motivation to outshine the other cities in the region, DeBerry said.
"Starting March 20 the Census Bureau is going to start posting participation rates on its website," she said.
The percentage of recipients who have completed the census will come out for each state, each county and each town. Fayetteville could face the unwanted prospect of, for instance, coming in behind Bentonville, she said.
On a more serious note, the virus outbreak has left census advocates scrambling because planned public events to boost census participation have had to be rescheduled. Federal, state and local authorities and health experts are strongly advising against holding crowded events.
Groups such as Reith's planned multiple meetings to encourage people with historically low participation rates, such as immigrants, to participate in the census. Those events are having to be rearranged on the fly.
A range of organizations from local chambers of commerce to the Arkansas Coalition of Marshallese are coordinating efforts to get a complete census count in Northwest Arkansas. They all encourage private industry, social groups and churches to help convince people to participate in the census.
Those requests are getting a good response, according to the complete count committees set up in cooperation with the Census Bureau in each of the region's major cities. Most cities are dedicating staff to work for a complete count while smaller communities in the region are getting assistance with the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission, according to the commission and those towns.
Tyson Foods in particular has been praised by a variety of pro-census groups for setting up computer stations at the company's facilities so employees can fill out online census forms. The Marshallese group and immigrant advocacy groups such as Arkansas United have organized to boost participation.
Immigrants and minority groups have a history of being undercounted in each census, leaders of those groups have said.
Another challenge census advocates face is getting the word out that every household needs to respond -- even, for instance, off-campus housing shared by students at the University of Arkansas.
"Even if your roommate's friend is crashing there and sleeping on the couch each night for a month, that needs to be counted," DeBerry said.
The census bureau has questions on each form that will help it eliminate redundancies such as the same student being reported twice, for instance, once at the off-campus address and once at his or her parent's house, DeBerry said.
Online responses are set to keep open until July 31, according to the bureau. Reith said groups such as hers nationwide are requesting the bureau keep online avenues open for longer in view of the disease outbreak, she said.
Census takers will knock doors at abodes where no response was received starting in May. The bureau expects to hire 500,000 census takers between May and July and has recruited more than 2.6 million applicants so far, bureau officials said.
The federal government does a census every 10 years, as the U.S. Constitution requires. Census figures are used in determining U.S. House and state legislative districts. They also directly affect how much of a share of federal taxpayer money for various programs are received by states and cities.
NW News on 03/15/2020