Census workers have adapted their outreach efforts for the 2020 census to prevent an undercount due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The U.S. Census Bureau extended the collection process by three months to Oct. 31 to compensate for lost outreach opportunities, said Jeff Behler, New York’s regional director for the bureau. Census leadership also transformed in-person outreach to virtual campaigns.

The goal is to have as many individuals self-register for the census as possible to prevent an undercount. But for “hard-to-count” cities like Syracuse, pre-existing challenges are compounding new problems the pandemic has presented.

As of June 26, nearly 50% of Syracuse households had self-responded to the 2020 census. The response rate is still well below the 73% threshold that experts use to define hard-to-count census tracts.

“Even though our self-response rates may be lower than (the national average), it doesn’t mean we’re not going to count everybody,” Behler said. “It just means we’re going to have to go and knock on more doors.”

Census data helps determine how much federal funding is allocated to cities for health and public infrastructure, Pell Grants and food assistance programs.

Only 61.7% of households in Syracuse completed self-response forms in the 2010 census, leaving census workers to pursue the remaining 38.3% through door-to-door outreach efforts.

Following up in-person with households that have not yet responded increases the risk of inaccuracy, as census workers may miscount or miss people entirely, researchers at the CUNY Graduate Center found.

Of the 55 census tracts in Syracuse, the three that are hardest to count encompass neighborhoods surrounding Syracuse University’s Main and South campuses. All three tracts currently show self-response rates below 15% — the lowest in the city.

Students housed in on-campus dorms at SU are already counted for the census through the university, but only 19% of SU students in total fill out the census, said David Lazoff, census ambassador who graduated from SU in 2020.

Many students are completely unaware that the census takes place, or they might not care since it doesn’t appear to affect them directly, he said.

“When I found out about that stat, it motivated me to make sure that we could (raise) that number,” Lazoff said.

Encouraging off-campus college students to complete the census is now a top concern for the U.S. Census Bureau, Behler said.

Households began receiving census response packets via mail on March 12. Most households in Syracuse received response packets in the mail that week, which included information about responding to the census online, by phone or through the mail.

The packets went out on the eve of the coronavirus outbreak in New York state. The timing of the outbreak was horrible for census collectors targeting college students, Behler said.

The city of Syracuse was implementing new efforts to increase self-response rates among students before New York state’s stay-at-home order took effect March 22. These efforts included a Complete Count Committee established in 2019 to engage historically undercounted communities.

The committee’s plans relied heavily on public events to educate and register undercounted groups, said Tory Russo, the city’s census coordinator. COVID-19 disrupted these plans and forced undercounted communities into isolation, where it can be even harder for census workers to maintain communication with them, she said.

“That timing in a sense couldn’t have been any worse for the work that we were doing — not that there’s ever a good time for a pandemic,” Russo said. “I think if anything it just added to that challenge of coordinating.”

Russo’s communication with the Complete Count Committee faltered at first as she and other members navigated the transition to working from home, she said. The committee has since been working day-by-day to adapt to the challenging circumstances the pandemic has caused, she said.

Roles like Russo’s demonstrate how important community connections are for the census to successfully count everyone, especially during a pandemic, Behler said.

The census’ first week of mail outreach also coincided with SU’s final week of-in person classes before the university transitioned to online instruction for the rest of the semester. The decision to suspend on-campus classes came two days into the university’s planned spring break.

Census workers struggled to contact students that had previously resided in off-campus housing, as many had left the city by the end of the week. The sudden change in address made the already hard-to-count student population even harder to get a hold of, Behler said.

As a result, the census may incorrectly register thousands of college students at their home addresses instead, disproportionately affecting underfunded communities like Syracuse that depend on accurate counts for resources and federal funding.

Syracuse’s three colleges –– Le Moyne College, Onondaga Community College and SU –– have all announced plans to resume in-person classes in the fall. But many students living off-campus will have found new housing by that time, complicating census workers’ door-to-door outreach efforts, Behler said.

City residents facing possible evictions due to the pandemic’s economic toll could also present a challenge to collecting an accurate count of the city’s population, he said.

“When you think about some of the decisions that are going to be made over the next few years by local leaders, whether that’s determining the number of vaccines a community needs,” Behler said, “Let’s make sure they have the best data possible.”

If the pandemic had struck during the 2010 census, the U.S. Census Bureau would have had much more difficulty collecting information since paper forms were the only response method available at the time, Behler said. New response methods –– including online and by-phone options –– give the 2020 census a fighting chance to obtain an accurate count, he said.

Working alongside Russo, Lazoff started developing ways to reach students following their sudden departure from campus in March. Lazoff targeted SU’s off-campus Greek community by emailing fraternity and sorority leaders step-by-step guides on how to register their members, he said.

Lazoff also reached out to other SU clubs using the same method, encouraging different student groups to fill out their census forms as soon as possible. He also visited different businesses in Syracuse to pass out fliers.

To expand the census’ online engagement efforts, Russo also reached out to CLLCTVE, a local public relations initiative dedicated to connecting college students with content creators. CLLCTVE is now working on a digital ad campaign that targets hard-to-count groups in Syracuse, said Kelsey Davis, CLLCTVE founder and CEO.

The city of Syracuse is running several ads like these produced by CLLCTVE in a new digital campaign to boost the census count in Syracuse. Courtesy of CLLCTVE

Davis, who graduated from SU in 2020 with a masters of science in entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises, said the campaign comes at a time when many people are looking for ways to improve their communities.

“I definitely believe that filling out the U.S. census is one of the most prevalent ways to do that,” Davis said.

Despite the pandemic, Lazoff, Russo and Davis hope their work will make a significant difference in this year’s census count, they said.

The U.S. Census Bureau can remove duplicate entries at the end of the final collection term, Behler said, so students can still fill out the census without worrying about being counted twice.

Census field staff began hand-delivering additional census packets to Syracuse residents May 27. Following social distancing protocols, over 500,000 census workers nationwide will start knocking on doors to contact remaining non-responsive households starting August 11.

Census workers will be entering a world that the coronavirus has drastically changed, Behler said. The 61.7% national response rate is higher than expected at this point in the collection process, a promising outlook for the months to come, he said.

It’s been reassuring to watch the Syracuse community work to find new ways to come together and ensure that everyone is counted, Russo said. Nonetheless, the pandemic has hindered her personal goal to help the city exceed the 73% self-response threshold of a hard-to-count area.

“I ask myself, ‘Is it realistic for us to achieve that 73% response as a city, given all of the circumstances of what’s happening right now?’,” Russo said. “I don’t know. I still think it’s a good thing to aim for, though.”

Published on June 29, 2020 at 12:27 pm

Contact Marnie: ammunozc@syr.edu