With the 2020 Census taking place this year, here is what you need to know.
Phoenix residents can expect an invitational letter from the Census Bureau the week of March 9. According to Phoenix Census Director Albert Santana, the letter will contain instructions on how to respond to the Census.
Following the letter, residents can expect five reminders to respond to the census in the mail by April 30. Residents can respond to the census online or by phone starting March 12, and then by mail after April 8.
Census takers will then go door to door to survey residents who have not responded by May 13, according to Santana. 2020 Census forms will be accepted until July 31.
An accurate census count is critical to the City of Phoenix, as it determines the funding for the state. Of the $20 billion in federal funds allocated for Arizona resulting from the census, $866 million will go to Phoenix.
The census data is used in decisions as to where schools should be located, where youth centers would best be placed, the number of affordable housing units needed and the size of Arizona’s congressional delegation.
To get the word out about the census, residents can expect to see nearly 2,500 TV commercials, 5,000 radio advertisements, 20 billboards, millions of spots on social media and a wrapped light rail train, according to Santana. The commercials will feature actual Phoenix residents.
“We are really trying to make sure that we have multiple layers of creating awareness,” Santana said at Phoenix City Council’s policy session.
In addition to advertisements to get the word out, the 2020 Census team is directing their focus toward their “My First Census” campaign.
“In 2010, there were over 55,000 children in Arizona that were not counted correctly in the census, and that is a huge loss; definitely a huge planning loss for us as a city,” said Phoenix Census Coordinator Leila Gamiz. “To ensure that doesn’t happen, we created the secondary campaign, ‘My First Census.’”
The secondary campaign will help in “reminding our community of the very serious point that taking the time to do a census will invest in the future of those young people,” Mayor Kate Gallego said.
See Downtown Devil’s past coverage of Phoenix’s census campaign here.
This 2020 Census update follows a press conference held in September of 2019, which launched the iCount 2020 campaign. At that conference, the City of Phoenix revealed that the census would be able to be answered online or by phone. The city would also use converted Dial-a-Ride vans, which the people of Phoenix can use to fill out their census or get more information.
At the conference, the city also announced a public-private partnership between Phoenix and companies Cisco and Microsoft.
This partnership will assist in reaching their goal that “all efforts are made so that every household, every community, and every person living in Phoenix participates in the 2020 Census” with the companies supplying internet connections and the technological infrastructure for Phoenix’s census efforts.
Continuing the theme of partnership, the 2020 Census team has partnered with Valley Metro, the Public Transit Department, the Water Services Department and the Neighborhood Services Department, among others, to help effectively spread the word. They have also partnered with local community leaders and organizations.
More information about the Phoenix 2020 census can be found at iCount2020.info.
Contact the reporter at hrein@asu.edu.
Hailey Rein is the Education Editor at Downtown Devil and a senior at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass communications. In addition, she is a digital producer at azcentral.com and The Arizona Republic. In her free time, she enjoys being with her dogs and watching a rom-com.
