Census takers worry apartment renters were undercounted

Census taker Linda Rothfield’s government -issued iPhone kept directing her back to apartments in San Francisco that she already knew were vacant. When she did find apartments that were occupied, she was sometimes turned away because of the pandemic.

“I had a few landlords who said, ‘It’s COVID. You can’t come in,’” Rothfield said.

In a national headcount turned upside down by natural disasters, political turmoil and a deadly virus, apartment renters proved particularly hard to count last year. That has former census takers and experts worried the tally failed to account for all of them.

Overlooking people in the nation’s 44 million rental homes carries a potentially high price. Because the census helps determine how $1.5 trillion in federal money is spent each year, the lower numbers would mean less government help to pay for schools, roads and medical services in those communities.

Around 36% of homes in the U.S. are occupied by renters, up from 33% during the previous census a decade ago.

Under the best of circumstances, renters are among the hardest people to count because they tend to be more transient and are more likely to live below the poverty line. They also tend to be disproportionately people of color, who also are traditionally undercounted in the census, according to The Leadership Conference Education Fund, a civil rights group.

Incomplete data on the race or ethnic background of renters could also hinder the formation of Blackor Hispanic-majority

political districts.