CLARION, Pa. (EYT) — Participation in the 2020 Census is essential for Clarion County.
(Clarion County courthouse courtesy Shaw Aerial Video/Photography)
Not only does the decennial census collect vital information on residents, that information is also used to determine a community’s need and support and grants through the Federal Government.
Commissioner Ed Heasley on Tuesday morning pointed out some of the consequences of not completing the census.
“For example, Clarion County could lose $264,000.00 in federal support from PEMA and funding for the 9-1-1 Center,” said Heasley. “A lot of that funding is based on the population. The 2020 Census is going to be a very important revenue stream for our 9-1-1 and EMS programs, along with schools and other state and federal-funded programs in this county.”
Information from the census helps determine low/moderate income areas for grants such as the Community Development Block Grants (CDBG). Clarion County and Clarion Borough and Clarion Township were just awarded CARES/CDEBG grants for COVID responses.
For more information go to 2020census.gov or call 1-844-330-2020.
Clarion County Census Committee
Brett Whitling is chairing a Clarion County Census Committee and offered s report on local progress.
The census website offers a webpage where it shows what the response is for a certain area, and you can break it down to municipality. Clarion County is actually 56 out of the 67 counties in Pennsylvania.
“I did put a link on the County website to break it down how each municipality is doing and what their response rate is,” said Whitling. “For example, Knox Township is the highest at 74.2 percent and Callensburg Borough is the lowest at 17.2 percent.”
The state response right now is 61.4 percent and the national response is 58.6 percent.
“The census just makes such a big difference — not just to county government — but to each community, libraries, schools, and public safety. Public safety includes funding for our 9-1-1 and that’s something we just don’t want to take for granted.”
Census Bureau Resuming Operation
Whitling introduced Dwayne Lehman from the Census Bureau on the Zoom meeting.
“We, as the Census Bureau, are deciding to resume operations based on public health guidance, local conditions, and input from our local leaders.
“We are continuing with group quarters, and that is primarily working with Clarion University to ensure that that university selected and is responsible for all their students living on campus or would have been living on campus effective April 1, 2020. The one concern we have as an organization is ensuring that those students living off-campus are able to complete the census, and when they complete the decennial census, it should be where they would have been on April 1. If for some reason off-campus students have moved in with their parents or another location away from their Clarion apartment, those off-campus students should still respond to the census even using the non-id or the code that was included in the postcard or their notifications that went to their apartment, and they should still complete the decennial census on where they should have been on one.”
Students reporting to the census do not have any income and that information helps the municipalities earn low-moderate income status for grants. Most students, if they do not live at home, would have lived in either Clarion Borough or Clarion Township, both CDBG entitled communities.
“In April, we reached out to Clarion University and all of the universities in Western Pennsylvania to stress that we’ve created a PowerPoint to illustrate and explain some of those talking points so college administrators professors and other leaders within the university community can communicate that message to their student bodies,” continued Lehman.
“With Clarion County going into Governor Wolf’s yellow phase last week and now with Cranberry Township and eight other areas, the census office located in Butler County is now going yellow effective this week. We are resuming our update leave operation. The update operation is essentially that we will send census employees out into the field.
“The first update is the master address file, and that is validating that a structure is a residency. It’s still standing, and there are people living in it. Number two, we will leave a hard copy of the census form at their location in regard to that. All our census employees are properly identified.
“The field workers are simply going out validating an address and then leaving a hard copy of the form now in terms of Western PA in general. We have 47,600 locations that we need to update the master address file and we will be leaving a hard copy of the census.
“For Clarion County alone, we will be dropping off 18,462 census forms at two locations.
“I can tell you that right now the time is NOW to respond to the decennial census. We’re asking every organization, every partner that we have collaborated with in the county and around Western Pennsylvania to get the word out — post stuff on social media sites, post things on your website, and in any interaction that you have or ask leaders within our communities those trusted voices to encourage people to respond.
“The traditional door knocker operation is tentatively scheduled to begin July 1 based on our current situation with the COVID-19 virus. We have extended our data collection through the end of September instead of July, and we have asked Congress for permission to deliver our report to the president until April 30, 2021.”
