All indications are that the 2010 Census is about to commence. On Monday, the U.S. Census Bureau began mailing advance letters, signed by Census Bureau director, Robert M. Groves, to about 120 million addresses nationwide, notifying households that 2010 Census forms will be arriving at their residences between March 15 and 17. The letters urge households to complete the 10-question census form when it arrives and return it in the accompanying prepaid envelope as soon as possible.

“The advance letter helps people know that their 2010 Census form will be arriving soon,” said Groves. “It’s an important reminder about the impact the census has on our communities, that the census is important and that everyone needs to participate.”

It is extremely important that residents of South Florida, irrespective of their residential status, be counted in the 2010 Census. This project which is undertaken by the U.S. Census Bureau every 10 years, is important not just to have an up-to-date count of how many people live in the U.S., but more importantly, to ascertain the number of residents living in specific communities and political districts. As city, county and state representatives have been telling their constituents over the past few months, an accurate indication of how may people reside in certain political districts, is indicative of the financial support that districts receive from the federal government for facilities like housing, highways, schools and health facilities. Undercounting a community means less government financial support for that community.

Counting Caribbean-Americans

For the Caribbean-American population, the 2010 Census is of particular importance. Leaders of the nationwide Caribbean Community have been waging a campaign led by CaribID 2010, a New York organization, to ensure that Caribbean nationals are identified as Caribbean in this year’s Census. Although the census form has no category to indicate that one is of Caribbean descent, Caribbean nationals can write in the word ‘Caribbean,’ when asked to indicate their ethnicity. This is not for Caribbean nationals to differentiate themselves, from African Americans, but for there to be an accurate count of Caribbean nationals (who are of many races), for economic, social and political reasons.

In past Census projects there was a tendency for residents to discard the advance census forms, requiring census takers to make follow-up visits, which some residents found inconvenient. It is therefore important that when the census forms arrive, they are completed and returned in the time frame stated by the Census Bureau.

Census Bureau research shows that sending an advance letter, and reminder postcard if necessary, boosts census mail-back rates and saves money. For every 1 percent increase in households that respond by mail, taxpayers save about $85 million in operational costs associated with census takers following up with households that did not mail back the form.

The more than 120 million households that receive both the advance letter and 2010 Census form by mail, represent about 90 percent of all residential addresses in the country. Census workers recently started hand-delivering census forms to another 9 percent of addresses in areas where many households lack traditional postal addresses.

Less than 1 percent of households are in areas where it’s more efficient for census takers to conduct census interviews rather than drop-off and require mail-back of the form.