Talk about homework! Since 1790, when Thomas Jefferson led the first national census, a once-a-decade count of people living in the U.S. has been taken. Required by the Constitution, it’s meant to count everyone — including YOU. With census data, communities get a fair share of school funding, health services and other government help. But it’s definitely work to find all those homes.
Starting this month, most people will get census forms by mail. But today KidNews gives special attention to those around the U.S. who get special attention (we found the best stories from people in remote Western areas). Read on to discover where people are discovered!
Census 2000 began in Unalakleet, Alaska, one of the state’s 226 remote villages. “We had to start ahead of the national schedule,” explains Tim Olson, assistant regional census manager for the Seattle Region, which includes Alaska. “Once spring break-up comes, transportation stops.” (Thaw makes roads and rivers way too muddy for planes or dogsleds. And the count gets tougher, too, because residents spread out to their fave fishing and hunting spots.)
Instead, in January, census leaders flew to Anchorage, then Fairbanks, and then hopped a tiny propeller plane. “You go through the dark even though it’s ten in the morning,” says Olson about winter’s Arctic darkness. “You don’t see lights, and you’re in the middle of nowhere. There’s no airport, but a truck comes out and everyone piles in.” With no rental- car places or hotels, census workers rent people’s vehicles and sleep in schools. But the door-to-door count gets done, thanks to local people who know exactly where their few neighbors live.
In Sacramento, Calif., census takers visit the California Expo Center, home to rodeos and other Western shows. They know that even without events, the place isn’t totally empty: Expo workers live in horse stalls!
Counters looking for people “on the road” check out campgrounds and RV parks. And they’re stopping at fairs and carnivals too — not for cotton candy, but to count those traveling workers.
In the onion fields around Walla Walla, Wash., migrant farm workers are counted with the help of local churches and migrant health clinics. In fact, wherever farm workers are, groups that work to help them will clue census counters to where migrants live even if that’s in cars and trucks parked along rural roads.
Local experts in such cities as Chicago and New York help include homeless people at soup kitchens, mobile food vans and shelters.
Tons of snow around Salt Lake City ski areas means Utah counters need snowmobiles to get around. Without them, there’s just “snow” way!
Anjeli Algerison of the Denver Census Office reports that of the 92 Native American tribes in the 10-state Denver region, the census is really going to the extreme for one. “Our director flew down by helicopter and rode two hours up by horse,” explains Algerison about reaching the Havasupai, a tribe that lives at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
Even people on ships won’t miss the boat. Counters are working with the U.S. Maritime Administration to find tuna crews, research ships and workers on other boats. People living on houseboats are counted at marinas. Military personnel, and those at foreign bases, are counted on land or sea with help from the Department of Defense or Coast Guard.
Trickier are camps in Idaho and Montana of people who aren’t big fans of the U.S. government. But by law, they must be counted too. “In Idaho, one of our assistants lives at the edge of an encampment,” Olson says. “And that’s what we do — we hire people who are their neighbors and friends to do the count.”
And when is all this homework due? On Dec. 31, when the census report goes to President Clinton.
HELPING KIDS? HERE’S WHERE YOU FIGURE IN
Kids, there’s a good reason to make sure your parents fill out their census forms: you! When parents fill out the forms, their kids get counted. And that can help communities get federal money for programs that help kids. The thing is, lots of kids are missed when census time rolls around. Sometimes parents don’t return forms, other times kids are living elsewhere and don’t get counted. And sometimes, the youngest kids in large households get left off the forms, because there’s room for detailed info on only six household members.
The Census Bureau, which estimates that it missed more than 2 million kids in 1990, is trying to stop the undercount. It has spent $20 million this year sending schools kits to teach how the census works.
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Learn more at www.census.gov
