Historical April–May 2020 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
As you know, the US government conducts a census every ten years. Besides putting that information in Ancestry.com so that we can look up our family tree, why should we fill out the census survey?
The most important reason is resources.
The 2020 Census will determine congressional representation, inform hundreds of billions in federal funding every year, and provide data that will impact communities for the next decade.
The results determine the number of seats each state has in the House of Representatives.
They are also used to draw congressional and state legislative districts.
The results will show where communities need new schools, new clinics, new roads, and more services for families, older adults, and children.
The results also determine where funds are allocated to more than 100 programs, including Medicaid, Head Start, block grants for community mental health services, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP.
Most households received their invitation to respond to the 2020 Census between March 12 – 20.
These official Census Bureau mailings will include detailed information and a Census ID for completing the Census online.
The 2020 Census will ask a few simple questions about you and everyone who is or will be living with you on April 1, 2020. For the first time, you can choose to complete the census online, by phone, or by mail.
As a special concern to our neighborhood due to the inordinate number of students who live herebecause of the Covid-19 pandemic, the census bureau is making accommodations to count students who would normally be living in dorms or university owned housing in our neighborhood on April 1st but have moved away for school closures through the group quarters enumeration rules (where the university reports this information on behalf of the students). Students who have rented apartments or houses but have left the neighborhood are required to fill out the census as if they were still in the apartments as of April 1st.
The universities will not be reporting on behalf of these students, however, the universities have conveyed this information on their websites and communicated via email and social media to these students.
In additional to the resource allocation, the census provides a history of an area and notes trends of interest regarding race, income, and education.
From Celebrating Skinker DeBaliviere History and Comeback, September 2009 Race was and is an important part of living in Skinker DeBaliviere.
The proportion of black to white changed from 1970 to 1980 and then back again in 1990. 1970 Population-1,960: 44% white, 55% black, 1% other. 1980 Population-4,928; 35% white, 64% black, 1% other. 1990 Population-5,601; 41% white, 56% black, 3% other. Between 1970 and 1990, our neighborhood actually became more diverse, as it became successful. By the year 2000, the population had decreased to 4,505, but the diversity actually increased slightly, to 50% black, 42% white, 8% other.
A Loyola University study quoted in Farai Chideya’s book, The Color of Our Future, states that only “5% of American Neighborhoods are racially diverse and stable (rather than in transition from say, mostly white to mostly black).” Despite, or maybe because of, its many struggles, and certainly because of the hard work by many individuals, Skinker-DeBaliviere is undoubtedly one of very few American neighborhoods to succeed in both integration and redevelopment.
Please fill out your census.
It is important to the region representationally, financially, and historically.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, April–May 2020.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Archival transcription note: Printed nineteen seventy neighborhood population one thousand nine hundred sixty conflicts with other historical series; preserved as source figure, not verified dataset.
Original source: SD_Times2020_04.pdf, printed page(s) 1; PDF page(s) 1.
