Making sure we all count

The ins-and-outs of the 2020 Census

 By Amy Hines | Manor Ink Mentor

The constitution requires the US government to count the number of people living in the country every ten years. The 2020 Census starts Thursday, Mar. 12, with mailed forms. The physical count for those not responding to the forms will begin in April around the country and in New York State and should be completed by July.

“People of all ages need to be counted – newborns all the way up to the most elderly. By 2030, people who are infants today will be in our public school system,” explained Lisa Moore, Assistant Regional Census Manager for New York (and for New England and Puerto Rico).

Moore elaborated, “It’s important to be counted for two reasons, one being power and the other money.” “It’s power because your political representation is based on how many people live here,” said Moore. “How many elected officials we are allowed is based on the Census results. This includes representatives in the US Congress, but also in our state legislatures. It even determines legislative boundaries and school district boundaries.

“It’s money because more than $675 billion is disseminated in the country based on Census data for social services, school lunch programs, WIC, roads, highways, hospitals – you name it, Census data is tied to it.”

If you don’t fill out a form and mail it in, or call with your household count, or fill out an online form, someone you may know will knock on your door to ask for the information.

Going door-to-door

For the last Census, in 2010, Sam Brandis-Dann served as an official for the Census, knocking on doors in White Sulphur Springs (where he was living at the time), Liberty, Livingston Manor, Shandelee, Youngsville, DeBruce, Parksville and surrounding areas.

“I joined the Census in the later stages of the process in 2010, as a Non-Response Follow-Up Enumerator or NRFU, pronounced ‘nar-foo’,” Brandis-Dann explained. “NRFUs are sent into the community to go door-to-door and count those that were missed in the first rounds. People weren’t initially counted for many reasons. They may have been traveling, been sick or otherwise unavailable, or may have refused to be counted.”

In rural communities, the Census administrators use property tax records and local maps to determine which buildings are residences and thus may contain people to be counted. They then send out enumerators to verify whether the structures are residences and whether they are occupied. Abandoned houses, barns and miscellaneous buildings are often assigned to NRFUs to verify that they are not habitable and shouldn’t be listed as residences.

“When I first started, everyone met for training at one of the local resorts,” said Brandis-Dann. “We were all fingerprinted and had our backgrounds checked to ensure that we were suitable to be employed by the government. Part of the reason for this is that the Census required us to walk onto people’s private property. Brazenly walking onto people’s land can be perceived as a threat, or as the government snooping around.”

Some risks involved Sam explained that he could encounter people with distrust or ill will toward the government who might become agitated by his presence and pose a risk to his safety.

“We were trained on how to respond and de-escalate such situations. Some Enumerators had guns drawn on them or threats made against them. If that happened we were instructed to leave immediately and contact our supervisors.

“Dogs were a much more common potential risk,” Brandis-Dann said. “If we ever felt unsafe for any reason we were told to withdraw from the property and report the risks to anyone else who might investigate after us.

“As a NRFU, I got to explore quite a few areas in Sullivan County I’d never seen before. Each week we were assigned about 15-40 houses. We met weekly with our team and supervisor at the diner in Roscoe where we were handed out assignments.

“During the course of my employment, from April to June, I visited over 100 residences and met 30-50 people. One older woman told me the whole history of her street, her neighbors and her life story. If no one was home we were to leave a phone number and a questionnaire.”

The hardest part of the job, Brandis-Dann said, was figuring out exactly which buildings the Census thought were residences and trying to match the way properties existed at the time with what had been reported in the records.

Like detective work

“You’re a bit like a real estate agent-meets-detective, with some rural archaeology mixed in. Some properties were abandoned or unlivable due to disuse and disrepair. Some were squalid and decaying, but still lived in. You become very aware of the different economic levels of the folks in your community – sometimes the wealthiest and the most impoverished are neighbors. You see all kinds of lives. Some folks are off-the-grid anti-government types. Some hang up lots of aggressive anti-trespasser signage.”

Brandis-Dann said he found the work interesting, and encouraged others to consider signing up.

“I would work for the Census again if I needed the part-time work. The pay is good. The hours are flexible. You earn tax-free mileage and can work as much or as little as you want, as long as you hit your required hours in a given week. I got to work on my own and spent my days exploring different landscapes throughout the county. There’s a lot of quiet beauty to behold when your office is your car on the open roads.”

Brandis-Dann currently lives in Vermont and works in digital marketing.

Reporter Emily Ball conducted the interview with Lisa Moore for this story; reporter Hunter Krause generated the questions for Sam Brandis-Dann.