Austin PBS Science

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Narrator

Every 10 years the U.S. government takes on the monumental task of counting every person in the country. But things are a little different this time around. Luckily we are in the year 2020 and we have more technology available to us than ever before.

Because of this technology, we have the ability to leverage data and make our efforts more concerted, more effective and more efficient. -

Narrator

Travis County is using this data to better understand where people actually are. -

Derica

In the past, the Census staff had a group of address canvassers who would go door to door and get out in the field and get a better understanding of where people actually resided. But now that we have more data available to us, those address canvassers have used GIS and other mapping tools to get that better understanding. -

Narrator

Using previous census data, the county created what it calls a Census Strategy Map. The map shows where certain populations live, whether they have access to the internet, and a host of other variables. By tracking these things, the county can see which areas are harder to count. -

Derica

What we did is we took each census track and raked it for each indicator. For example, the census tracks that have the highest makeup of percentage of renters got a higher score. And those with a lower makeup of renters as a percentage got a lower score, a score of one. We did that for each of these indicators.

We have 14 indicators or variables that we calculated this for. So each census tracked got a composite score based on those indicators. The higher the score, the higher they are hard to count. -

Narrator

Austin is using these same tracks to figure out the best way to reach under counted communities. It is no secret to anyone that there has been historic displacement across many communities here locally. And with that displacement, not only comes the trauma of having to pick up and leave sometimes a multi-generational household. But what that also comes with is a disconnection from traditional community, institutions.

So we've gotta find these other creative ways of getting around to folks. -

Narrator

In order to better understand these communities, the county created complete count committees. These committees represent communities that have been under counted in the past. Like people of color or college students. Neal Whetstone works with the African American Black complete count committee.

He says the maps make outreach more effective. It kinda just made things a little more tangible 'cause it's so easy to just talk about the black community and yada yada, but actually oh no and these, from this stretch to this stretch or in these corridors. So it just made things a lot more tangible for, I think, the committee and just helped us be a lot more clear and a lot more efficient about how we were going to sort of build our strategy, build out our outreach and things like that. -

Narrator

People traditionally have completed the census by mail or phone. This year, however, the census will also be available online While this increases access, under counted communities still remain fearful of giving out their information. So, the city is using mapping data to determine which trusted community centers to partner with. -

John

One of the things that's come out of a lot of the research that's been occurring nationally about how do we get folks who are of a hard to count community to take action and take the census if they're not ready to do right now. It's that you have them hear about the census or take it in trusted locations. And libraries are one of the most trusted locations across the board. Healthcare clinics are as well.

It's one of the touchpoints where most people are going to go at some point, one way or another. And then schools as well. -

Narrator

The hope is these maps can serve as a resource long after the census is over. Whether we're dealing with everything from affordable housing, the affordability crisis we're going through now, to our schools. I think it can really serve as kinda like that springboard into having public policy that's better serving these communities and that's more informed. So that's something that I'm definitely looking forward to once this is over in seeing how we can make a lot of this data tangible in terms of affecting people's material conditions.

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Narrator

And a successful census means data can make a difference.