Census chief tours areas with low voter turnout
Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham paid a visit to Houston on Tuesday, stopping at spots that sometimes have low turnout in the census count.
He visited heavily African-American and Hispanic communities with an itinerary that included Gregory-Lincoln Education Center, Texas Southern University and Baker Ripley Neighborhood Center, among other places.
“We want everybody as soon as possible to answer the census,” Dillingham said. “If they understand how important it is, how easy it is and how secure it is, we think we will get everybody on board.”
Since being sworn in as the bureau’s new director in January, Dillingham said he’s already made trips to more than half the states across the country.
The 2020 count marks the first time people can fill out the census using an online form. Dillingham said bureau officials hope to have the highest self-response rate yet.
The Census Bureau will employ roughly half a million people to help with the count effort, and he emphasized how they want people familiar with their communities who can reach out to fellow neighbors. The bureau is working with colleges, community centers and other on-the-ground organizations to help encourage people to complete the decennial census count.
During his stop at Texas Southern, he was joined by university President Austin Lane and U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston.
Lane said TSU’s partnership with the census will allow students to gain employment opportunities.
“It’s an extremely historic moment for TSU to have this happen here on campus and have the partnership with Dr. Dillingham and his staff,” Lane said.
Jackson Lee stressed the importance of having young voices represented in the census count, noting how sometimes they are overlooked because they are in school or moving to a new job.
“Millennials need to be counted,” she said. “What better place to start that connection than with students themselves?”
The director’s visit comes four months after the Supreme Court effectively ruled against efforts to add a citizenship question to census forms. The Trump administration subsequently dropped plans to include the question on the 2020 census.
Kellie Karavias, a culinary arts educator at Gregory-Lincoln Education Center, said she enjoyed Dillingham’s visit. Students at the HISD magnet campus come from varying backgrounds, including a large population of homeless students from three area shelters, she said.
“It’s a really unique mix of kids because they have very, very different life experiences, but here is where they can really flourish,” Karavias said.
Dillingham said getting an accurate census count is important for allocating federal funds to the correct number of people. He said the data is some of the mostused in the world, noting how schools, roads, infrastructure, public services are all dependent on census data.
Census day occurs on April 1, 2020.