“What we were shooting to do was definitely surpass our 2010 self-response level,\u00a0which is what we did,” she said.<\/p>\n
Bechtel said a quote from late South African President\u00a0Nelson Mandela has resonated\u00a0with her since the end of the count: “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”<\/p>\n
“I think that just sums up the past two years of our 2020 Census count effort,” she said.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0federal government had initially projected that Ventura County would be\u00a0in the bottom 2% of counties nationwide for\u00a0self-response rates, she said.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n
“I think that dramatic change is quite historic and the impact will be felt for generations,” Bechtel said.<\/p>\n
She said the turnabout\u00a0was accomplished in large part by the collaboration of the many groups\u00a0– including Ventura County, businesses, the faith-based community, nonprofits and others – that make up the\u00a0Ventura County 2020 Complete Count Committee.<\/p>\n
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said. “Everybody around the table all the time, speaking multiple languages, doing their part.<\/p>\n
“And it was such a long effort,” Bechtel added. “We worked on this for over\u00a0two years. And I think that sustained commitment is also part of why it was successful.”<\/p>\n
Powers said the county’s high self-response\u00a0rate\u00a0was due in large part to consistent, multi-language outreach, including\u00a0more than 100 community events prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
During the pandemic, he said, county agencies continued to conduct multi-lingual outreach in innovative ways on farms, at food distribution sites, while delivering food to the most vulnerable and while providing services.<\/p>\n
Powers said the county was the largest funder of the outreach with more than $1.8 million.\u00a0He said all county agencies helped promote the census.<\/p>\n
They included lead efforts from his office, the Human Services Agency, the Health Care Agency, the Area Agency on Aging and the Farmworker Resource Program in conjunction with the complete count committee.<\/p>\n
Billions of local dollars at\u00a0stake<\/h2>\n
El censo, que se realiza cada 10 a\u00f1os por mandato constitucional, tiene por objeto contar toda la poblaci\u00f3n de Estados Unidos, seg\u00fan la Oficina del Censo.<\/p>\n
Los fondos, subvenciones y ayudas federales a estados, condados y comunidades se basan en los totales de poblaci\u00f3n y en desgloses por sexo, edad, raza y otros factores, seg\u00fan la Oficina.<\/p>\n
El recuento tambi\u00e9n determina cu\u00e1ntos esca\u00f1os obtienen los estados en la C\u00e1mara de Representantes de Estados Unidos.<\/p>\n
Billions of dollars in federal funds to Ventura County over the next decade are at stake, Bechtel said.<\/p>\n
“This is really how we get our tax dollars back into our own communities,” she\u00a0said. “The census helps determine\u00a0how much of that comes back to Ventura County”\u00a0for health care, social services, law enforcement, business loans, water systems, transportation and many other programs.<\/p>\n
A census\u00a0undercount in Ventura County would have “disastrous” financial consequences here, she said.<\/p>\n
Cada persona no contabilizada representa una p\u00e9rdida estimada de $2.000 anuales durante 10 a\u00f1os en fondos federales para el condado, dijo.<\/p>\n
If 100,000 people were missed in the count, that would represent a minimum loss of $2 billion over the next decade, she said.<\/p>\n
Bechtel estimated\u00a0that of Ventura County’s roughly 846,000 residents, about 652,000 have been counted via self-response.<\/p>\n
More were\u00a0counted by some 1,000 local census takers who knocked on people’s\u00a0doors and otherwise reached out, she said.<\/p>\n
‘Mad dash’ to the end<\/h2>\n
The census count was originally scheduled to go through Oct. 31.<\/p>\n
But the Supreme Court ruled on Oct. 13\u00a0that the Trump administration could\u00a0end census field operations early, in a blow to efforts to make sure minorities and hard-to-count\u00a0communities are properly tallied.<\/p>\n
Following the high court’s decision, the Census Bureau ended the count\u00a0Oct. 15.<\/p>\n
Bechtel said once the Supreme Court issued its ruling, it was “a mad\u00a0dash” to the end of the count 48 hours later.<\/p>\n
“We\u00a0did everything we possibly could to get that accurate count,” including staffing phone banks and a social media blitz, she said.\u00a0“It was all hands on deck.”<\/p>\n
She said another challenge to achieving a full count was the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n
Because of health concerns, census takers were prevented for a time from going out in the field, while plans to place nearly 200 kiosks throughout the county with census information weren’t realized, she\u00a0said.<\/p>\n
The Census Bureau says that by Dec. 31, it will deliver apportionment counts to President Donald Trump as required by law.<\/p>\n
Apportionment is the process of dividing the 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives among the 50 states based on census\u00a0population counts, the bureau says.<\/p>\n
By April 1, the bureau says it will send redistricting counts to the states. Those counts are used to redraw legislative districts based on population changes, the bureau says.<\/p>\n
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