Chester County matches its 2010 census response rate
Delaware County’s census count is running into problems - and coronavirus has been no help.
As census workers began going door-to-door last week to garner responses from residents who have not yet filled out their forms, officials involved in the various efforts to gain as comprehensive a count as possible said there’s still a long way to go.
“We’re nowhere where we need to be, particularly in communities like Chester,” Frances Sheehan, president of the Foundation for Delaware County, said Thursday during a virtual town hall meeting focused on the release of a Johns Hopkins University assessment of health needs in the county focused on the need for a local health de
partment.
On it, she spoke of the county’s vigorous Complete Count Committee formed last September as a way to include community representatives and organizations to reach hard-tocount residents.
In addition, Sheehan said the United Way assisted the Foundation for Delaware County in deploying over $100,000 to non-profits in the county to spread the word about the census and the importance of filling it out.
“But it’s been a real problem,” she said. “And there’s been so much confusion because, of course, with the COVID lockdown, everything stalled like people thought they had until Oct. 31, now they only have until Sept. 30. We really need more people to be engaged. We need people to fill it out because it is going to significantly impact funding for a variety of different services at the county level.”
On the county website, a link at https://census2020-dcpd.hub.arcgis.com/ has been created so people can fill out the census in 13 languages while also seeing where the county stands in response rates. As of Saturday, 69.7 percent of Delaware County had filled out the census form. The translation is “Residents who speak Spanish can call
267-453-7289 from Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. for information or help in completing the 2020 Census questionnaire.
Information gathered from the census is used to determine how to distribute $675 billion in federal funds and grants for hospitals, schools, roads, public works and other programs. In 2010, $27 billion was directed towards Pennsylvania, then allocated based on census results. Census officials have said that on average, for each person counted in the census, $2,000 every year for the next 10 years comes back to Delaware County.
The information is also used to draw U.S. Congressional districts and it’s also used for community planning purposes when businesses are considering investing in areas.
The questionnaire has approximately 10 questions and all of the information on it is confidential and protected by Title 13 of the U.S. Code. In February and early March, Census Champion trainings were held before the COVID-19 pandemic hit and everything locked down to mitigate its spread. Delaware County Vice Chairman Dr. Monica Taylor spoke of the effort being taken in areas like Upper Darby, Chester and communities in the southeastern portion of the county that have previously been undercounted. “We’ve actually had a long-standing group that’s been working to get the information out through the census in working with kind of those high target areas where we had low participation from,” she said. “We’ve been trying to work really closely with them to make sure that we’re trying to get that communication out through the municipalities, through the local organizations, through our multicultural collaboration and trying to get as much participation in the process.”