Press release from the City:
Mayor Henry kicks off City’s Complete Count Committee for 2010 Census
Community leaders to encourage full participation in important, safe decennial population tally
Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry welcomed the City’s 2010 Census Complete Count Committee as they started their work today to encourage all Fort Wayne residents to complete the 10-question census form that will arrive in mailboxes next year. Mayor Henry proclaimed today as U.S. Census Day in the City of Fort Wayne.
A voluntary committee, the nearly 20 members will work with difficult-to-enumerate populations in Fort Wayne with the message that the decennial headcount is important and safe.
“The U.S. Census is not only an important tool for demographics, but it is also critical for determining grants and funding for federal programs at the local level. For each person who is not counted, that is much-needed money for health and human service programs, job training, Title 1 education programs, transportation funding, agricultural grants and Housing and Urban Development grants that will not come to Fort Wayne,” said Mayor Henry. “Fort Wayne’s Complete Count Committee will supplement the Census Bureau’s advertising efforts by using the members’ local connections of neighbor informing neighbor to result in every person being counted.”
The Complete Count Committee will not actually go door to door for people who do not complete the census form; that is the responsibility of Census employees. Instead, committee members will use outreach strategies to increase the number of people who complete the questionnaire.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, groups most likely to be undercounted are:
- Minorities
- Children
- People below poverty
- Immigrants and refugees
- People living in large urban areas or rural areas
The Census Bureau encourages local, tribal and state governments to assemble Complete Count Committees to get more people to complete the mail-in form. The U.S. Postal Service will mail out questionnaires in March 2010.
Under federal law, all responses to census questionnaires are private and strictly confidential. The President and all federal, state and local agencies – including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Internal Revenue Service, Welfare and law enforcement entities – do not have access to census responses.
The Census Monitoring Board estimated Census 2000 undercounted about 47,000 people in Indiana with an undercount rate of 0.77 percent. Of those not counted, the board calculated 40 percent of them were under age 18 for an undercount rate of 1.15 percent for children.
In addition to federal funding, census numbers apportion the number of Congressional districts for each state, which also results in the number of seats Indiana has in the Electoral College for presidential elections.
Fort Wayne’s Complete Count Committee members are:
- Loaine Hagerty, St. Joe Community Health Foundation
- Tony Aduro, African Immigrants Social & Economic Development Agency
- Nyein Chan, Catholic Charities
- Irene Paxia, Red Cross Multicultural Exchange
- The Rev. James Keller, New Life Lutheran Church
- Ngozi Rogers, Indiana’s Newscenter
- Rosa Gerra, United Hispanic-Americans
- Claudia Johnson, Community Harvest Food Bank
- Patty Crisp, Charis House
- Jamie Garwood, United Way
- Maye Johnson, Allen County Council
- Pat Turner, City of Fort Wayne
- Fernando Zapari, El Mexicano Newspaper
- Pam Brookshire, Community Action of Northeast Indiana
- Craig Martin and George Fields, Fort Wayne Community Schools
- The Rev. Roger Reece, Associated Churches
- Saneta Maiko, Multi-Cultural Council
- Richard Stevenson, Wayne Township trustee
- Palermo Galindo, City of Fort Wayne
The committee’s co-chairs are Rogers and Galindo.
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20 people? Really?
I wonder how long before we see our first 100 person committee?
Don’t know about all but can identify 6/20 are African-American; 4/20 are Hispanic; 4/20 are other minorities – that leaves 6 that are representative of the majority of our city’s citizens. So just who are we going to “coddle” during this census? Two out of 20 are elected to Allen County offices – and they both are Democrats. 10% of the members work for Fort Wayne Community Schools in “placement of elementary students in Magnet School transfers”.
And this is to be a non-political census?
Please understand that MOST of the community (70%) completes the census form. This group was formed so that the hard to count populations (homeless, immigrants,the poor, etc.)fill out their forms and has nothing to do with politics. To read that in any of the press release is laughable at best.
There is only one member of the FWCS, as I understand, the other is a proxy.
richard d : To read that the mayor’s press release is NOT political IS laughable. His main reason given for the group being formed, “For each person who is not counted, that is much-needed money for health and human service programs, job training, Title 1 education programs, transportation funding, agricultural grants and Housing and Urban Development grants that will not come to Fort Wayne” is as political as anything can get! Our elected governmental persons seem to think that their main job is to see that we get our “fair share” of the dribble of the tax dollars we send to Washington DC. And that’s true of both Republican as well as Democrat party “ins”. Isn’t it about time that we get back to controling our government in the manner laid out by the founders of our republic?
Recently, if my memory is correct, a group was orgainized to count the “homeless” in our community – and, they couldn’t find any!!! The same can be said about the “undercount” of 0.77% – that’s 0.0077 times the total – a meager amount – so why bother IT’S ALL POLITICAL!
It’s hard to understand isn’t it? I don’t think I could dumb it down any more for you.