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April 05, 2010

Monday, April 5, 2010

The Funders Census Initiative and the CUNY Mapping Service at the Center for Urban Research, CUNY Graduate Center today released the following announcement to help residents, reporters, census advocates, and others to identify neighborhoods that will receive replacement questionnaires.

 

For more information:

Steven Romalewski (CUNY), 212-817-2033, SRomalewski@gc.cuny.edu

Terri Ann Lowenthal (FCI), 203-353-4364, TerriAnn2K@aol.com

UPDATED with sample maps -- see below.

As the U.S. Census Bureau moves into the second half of the Mail-out/Mail-back operation, millions of homes in historically low-responding census tracts will receive a second “replacement” questionnaire.   People in mail-back areas who did not return their form yet, didn’t receive a form, or lost their questionnaire can determine if they will receive a second one by typing in their home address on the Census 2010 Hard To Count Interactive Mapping Website developed by the City University of New York’s (CUNY) Mapping Service at the Graduate Center. 

Here's how it works: Enter a street address at the top of the map.  A pop-up window will appear that will indicate if the selected tract is in the replacement questionnaire universe.  See the screen image to the right.

You can also display these areas on the map by clicking the “More” tab in the left toolbar and selecting one or both of the check boxes in the April 2010 Replacement Questionnaire section.  This will shade the tracts on the map that will receive the second form. See sample maps below.

Website users can also see the latest participation rates on the map (the site provides features that complement the Census Bureau’s Take 10 map).  Under the “Be Counted” tab, users can enter a county name to highlight the tracts below a certain participation rate in that county.  The resulting list of tracts can be sorted by rate, to help advocates target additional outreach activities and fine-tune messages based on the hard-to-count characteristics of each tract.

The second mailing, a new feature for the 2010 decennial census, is going out in two waves.  On April 1, the Census Bureau began mailing replacement forms to every address in census tracts with mail response rates below 59 percent in Census 2000 (called the “blanketed” replacement form).  Like the forms mailed in mid-March, the replacement questionnaires will bear a bar code tying them to a specific housing unit, to ensure that a household is not counted twice if it returns both the first and second forms.  A letter accompanying the replacement questionnaires tells respondents that they do not need to fill out the second form if they have already mailed back the first one (or phoned in their answers).

On April 6, the Census Bureau will start identifying homes in census tracts with moderate mail response rates in Census 2000 (59% - 64%) that did not yet mail back their 2010 census form, and will mail replacement forms to those homes on April 10 (called the “targeted” replacement form).

The Mail-out/Mail-back phase ends on April 19; after that, the Census Bureau will begin to compile the list of addresses that census takers must visit in the massive door-to-door operation (Nonresponse Follow-Up), scheduled to run from May 1 – July 10.

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Maps of selected cities showing extent of Census replacement mailing coverage

Gray / black shading (or cross-hatching) represents Census tracts receiving second mailing; blue-green-yellow shading corresponds to Census participation rates.

Click on each map to go directly to that city on www.CensusHardToCountMaps.org.  Remember to click the "More..." tab in the left toolbar and select one or both of the check boxes in the April 2010 Replacement Questionnaire section.

NYC	Los Angeles	Houston	Dallas

Cincinnati	Baltimore	San Francisco	Albany, NY