With census timeline cut short, organizers scramble to count Kansas City residents

For months, Andres Chaurand has been trying to get more Kansas City residents to take a 10-minute survey that could help their city for years to come.

Chaurand, a community organizer with the Guadalupe Centers, wants as many residents as possible to fill out the census. Counting an area accurately can ensure proportionate federal dollars are distributed for community resources such as education, hospitals and roads and social programs like Head Start and Medicaid over the next 10 years.

But Chaurand and other local organizers’ plans have been hampered for a number of reasons. The coronavirus pandemic, a new online platform and general distrust in the U.S. government have already resulted in lower response rates than in 2010 across the country and in Kansas City.

The U.S. Census Bureau announced a new roadblock Monday. It would cut short census reporting by one month, from Oct. 31 to Sept. 30, leaving Chaurand and other community organizers “scrambling” to inform residents of the change.

“It really puts pressure on us as far as trying to figure out what we can do to get these people to respond,” Chaurand said.

Originally, the census deadline had been extended to Oct. 31 from its usual deadline at the end of July to account for lower response rates when the coronavirus pandemic first hit.

The Kansas City area had a 57.3% self-response rate as of Aug. 2, down about eight percentage points from 2010, when the city’s rate reached 65%, according to data from the Census Bureau. Across Missouri, there was a 63.1% response rate as of Aug. 2 compared with a 67.5% rate in 2010.

Rural neighborhoods and urban centers are more likely to see lower response rates compared with suburban residents, said Marlene Nagel, the community development director for the Mid-America Regional Council.

“In some neighborhoods, it’s pretty significant,” Nagel said of the drop in participation this year. “And in others, the response rates are similar to or close to what was experienced in the 2010 census.”

Historically, hard-to-count populations across the United States include low-income households, rural residents and undocumented immigrants.

Organizations such as the Guadalupe Centers hoped their efforts within some of these communities would result in a more accurate representation.

Chaurand said his organization has worked on census outreach through online events and robocalls to encourage more Latino residents in the Kansas City area to respond. He said they’ve built trust with community members during educational events online, explained information in Spanish and emphasized that census data is kept confidential.

City Councilwoman Ryana Parks-Shaw, whose fifth district includes South Kansas City, said she represents a community where many residents lack internet access, making it harder to count them. The coronavirus, she said, created stress that has led fewer people to respond. But Parks-Shaw said she’s working with the city to get internet hotspots for residents and pushing on social media for more people to participate.

To show residents how easy the process is, she broadcast a Facebook live event showing her teenage son filling out the survey on his phone, she said. Parks-Shaw tells constituents that each person who’s counted represents $1,272 in federal money for residents that could go toward necessary resources.

Her office has used the pandemic as an example of why the area needs to be accurately counted so that residents don’t miss out on federal dollars that could pay for programs.

“We are unfortunately seeing where our communities have more need,” she said. “If we aren’t counted in the census ... we will be underrepresented in those dollars.”

Kansas City Public Libraries, another organization working to educate residents on the importance of the census and get a more accurate count, received laptops with a grant to help people fill out the survey at events.

The organization is planning other outreach efforts, but “lost ground” over the last few months as it had to cancel events and transition online, said Jenny Garmon, the legal and government specialist for the libraries.

Panels and events at senior centers and other community organizations were nixed, but Garmon said she’s still planning to go in person to various libraries and other facilities to help residents fill out the survey online.

With online events that his organization has hosted, Chaurand said it’s harder to know if people are listening when he and other workers aren’t helping them fill the survey out in person.

Still, he’ll continue pushing the importance of the census and breaking any stigma so that hard-to-count communities are better represented. That way, he said, they’ll get more funding for the education, development, health and other resources they need.

“We all need these resources more so than ever,” Chaurand said, “and you see it year in and year out these communities not receiving them.”