Detroit Census Workers Perform 2010 Wrap-Up Work

The Detroit Regional Census Bureau has a three-part plan to close out the 2010 count to ensure as much accuracy as possible, says spokesman Kim D. Hunter.

"The Detroit Region includes Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia, and we and now down to checking our work," Hunter says. "This phase of the census is Quality Assurance, and we have moved our work load down from a few thousand to a few hundred households and housing units that will will soon have down to double digits. Not matter how many of how few people and places we have to count or verify, we apply the same stringent standards of accuracy, counting everyone once and only once and in the right place."

Hunter says the three aspects of Quality Assurance are:

(1) Coverage Follow-Up Operation, through Aug. 13. Census Bureau workers will call or visit households who have responded to the if they need to clarify any answers about the number of people living at the address as of April 1. If workers have indication that someone may have been included or excluded in error, they will call to get a better understanding of the situation, and then use our census residence rules to resolve the uncertainties.

(2) Vacant Delete Check, through Aug. 25. Workers will collect additional information to ensure housing units classified as vacant (or nonexistent) were in fact unoccupied on April 1. In this operation, the bureau will follow up with housing units that were classified as vacant or nonexistent during the non-response follow-up operation. A census taker, different from the one who made the original classification , will visit the housing unit to confirm the classification. If workers determine that classification was wrong, they will collect the census information for the housing unit and any residents. During this operation, workers also will visit and enumerate addresses that were added to a bureau master list too late to include them in the form delivery by mail in March or in the door-to-door follow-up phase in April, May and June.

(3) Field certification, through Sept. 3. Census workers will verify whether an address exists and confirm its geographic location if it does not match an address in the bureau's file. These addresses were submitted by households who provided their census information without an identification number linked back to the address file. For example, the households may have submitted a so-called Counted form or provided their census information over the phone. Workers use this operation to resolve suspected duplicate addresses contained within the same block.

Any person who has questions regarding these wrap-up operations, who believes they were missed in the census, or knows somebody who was missed may call he Census Bureau a 1-866-872-6868.

Census officials say full counts are important to local communities because federal aid for purposes such and roads and highways, social programs, schools and hospitals are doled out based on population.

Hunter says counting often is more difficult in urban areas such as Detroit because low-income and minority residents often are more transient and more fearful of authority.

Metro Detroit full count organizers have stessed that each person missed in the count will cause the region to lose about $1,300 in support annually during the next 10 years.