Orange adds Census kiosks as deadline looms, responses lag
With a fast-approaching deadline, Orange County government agreed to let the U.S. Census Bureau install computer kiosks in seven community centers in a final push to boost the local count, which has been lagging behind the tally of people in 2010.
Census figures are crucial, often determining how much federal aid a community receives.
As of Sept. 1, Census officials had received responses from about 62% of all Orange County addresses.
“That’s not good enough,” Mayor Jerry Demings said.
In 2010, Census officials said they received responses from 72% of the county’s addresses.
Lavon Williams, the county’s census committee manager, said the Internetconnected machines are available for use at the community centers by anyone, but are intended for county residents who may not have a computer or access to the web at home.
Williams said local efforts are proceeding as if the national count will end Sept. 30, as the Trump administration prefers.
“We’re pushing everybody to get it done as quickly as we can,” she said
The National Urban League, the League of Women Voters and other advocacy groups sued last month to allow the count to continue through the end of October. They have argued that a shortened head-count will produce an inaccurate tally, which would result in some communities losing both political representation and millions in federal aid that is allotted by population.
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, which struck in March, the Census Bureau postponed the doorto-door part of its count until August. The Trump administration said at the time that it would extend the deadline for completing the count to Oct. 31.
But it later ordered the count to wrap up by Sept. 30
Experts and former Census Bureau directors have warned that an abbreviated counting effort, already limited by the COVID-19 pandemic, will result in a census that undercounts young, poor and minority groups who have often been hardest to count.
In Central Florida, focus areas include lower-income neighborhoods and predominantly Black and Hispanic census tracts.
A federal judge in Northern California on Saturday temporarily set aside the president’s plan for an early finish to the head-counting portion of the census until after a mid-September hearing in the lawsuit that seeks to scrap the expedited census schedule.
Demings said census figures were used in the formula that netted Orange County $243 million from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, also known as the CARES Act, the $2.2 trillion economic stimulus package passed by Congress in
March.
The money provided millions to fund the county’s eviction diversion program and other direct assistance programs.
The community centers are open Monday through Friday from 8:30 AM to 5 PM.
The sites are: East Orange Community Center,12050 E. Colonial Drive, Orlando; Hal P. Marston Community Center, 3933 W. D. Judge Drive, Orlando; Holden Heights Community Center, 1201 20th St., Orlando; John Bridges Community Center, 445 W. 13th St., Apopka; Maxey Community Center, 830 Klondike St., Winter Garden; Pine Hills Community Center, 6408 Jennings Road, Orlando; and the Taft Community Center, 9450 S. Orange Avenue, Orlando.
Each center has staff assigned to help people use the touch-screen kiosks, which are wiped clean with between uses.