Anne Eagle Bull Department of Commerce Census Division has officially started the Road to the 2020 Census self-response campaign. If you live in the Urban Area you probably received the census form in the mail. If you didn’t receive your form you can still self-respond by visiting https://my2020census.gov/. What does that mean? We can self-respond to the U.S. Census 3 ways; internet, mail and phone. This is a simple effort and critical to our tribes, communities, districts for funding allocations. A kindergartner counted in the 2020 census this spring will be starting high school when the next census comes around in 2030. Follow the 10 years of funding allocated for school supplies, teachers, school lunches, and so much more for the community that surrounds the school and neighborhood. Responding to the census helps your community to the piece of the pie in funding. Starting this month everyone living in your home needs to be counted. That includes children and newborn babies, citizens and non-citizens, relatives and non-relatives. Remember your response to the census is safe and secure. The law requires the U.S. Census Bureau to keep your information confidential, and your responses cannot be used against you in any way. There are many ways that the census has engaged partners to get the messaging out to encourage participation through becoming a trusted voice in the process. These trusted voices are vital to ensuring a complete and accurate count. Trusted voices in your communities’ partner to raise awareness to promote the messaging that 2020 Census is safe, easy and important. This once a decade count is critical to understand on how it can impact your community and benefit your community. For Census 2020 to be effective it requires a substantial mission. This requires counting the many diverse and growing population in the United States and the five U.S. territories. The mission includes making an accurate list of every residence in the U.S. and those five U.S. territories including houses, apartments, dormitories, military barracks and more. Let’s do our part and encourage family and friends to complete the census online, by phone, or by mail. A lack of self-response will determine if the door to door enumerators will be deployed in your area. Once the self-response scores indicate that areas have not responded we must follow up in person to those homes that did not respond which will start in May 2020. Self-response rates can be monitored for your area on the census website if you do take the opportunity to view the self-response rate please encourage those in your community to take the 2020 census. If you see a census post on social media share it channel it to your friends, family and co-workers. Your circle will more likely respond to the census once they find out how simple it is through your own experience. To track the self-response rates in your area please go to http://2020census.gov/en/response-rates.html. The original close out date to self-respond was July 31, 2020 due to the recent COVID-19 outbreak the date has been extended to August 14, 2020. This article is provided by Anne Eagle Bull, Tribal Partnership Specialist if you have any questions please feel free to contact her at annette.m.eagle.bull@2020census.gov
