Community Planning & Mapping for Census Turnout
2020 Census outreach - Hard to Count Community mapping and strategy
Context:
Every ten years, the United States Census Bureau conducts a count of everyone living in the U.S., informing where hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding will go for communities all over the country. Census data impacts more than 100 programs, including Medicaid, Head Start, block grant programs for community mental health services, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP, for the next ten years. Black and Brown communities, refugee / immigrant communities, and low-socioeconomic communities are historically under-counted every decade, impacting billions of dollars for vulnerable communities throughout the U.S. These communities are known as Hard to Count communities.
City of Rochester Census Self-Response Dashboard - What was it?
Role: Project Creator, Creative UX/UI Director, Strategy & Outreach Lead
Team: Senior GIS Analyst Marlana Zink
The U.S. Census Bureau has a dashboard that maps out response rates for cities all over the U.S. However, this data does not map out response rates for specific neighborhoods within cities, which is where many low response communities reside. Considering this, I came up with the City of Rochester Census Self-Response Dashboard idea, which would would map out response rates for specific neighborhoods within the City of Rochester, in order to guide outreach efforts and strategize specifically on neighborhood areas where census response rates were low in our region.
I created this dashboard project due to my work monitoring the low census tracts on the Hard to Count Census map and the U.S. Census Bureau’s response rate dashboard. The U.S. Census bureau dashboard only focuses on a macro level analysis of which cities / counties are doing well for census response rates. There is a plethora of data on what areas in the U.S. had low census response rates, and the vision was to create a dashboard that had a more micro perspective on Rochester specific neighborhoods, so as to guide community outreach and planning for getting out the count. I worked alongside the City of Rochester’s GIS team to map out the low response census tracts in Rochester.
Marlana Zink from the City of Rochester’s GIS team was able to aggregate the data, map out and create the dashboard, that showcased which specific neighborhoods within Rochester were doing well / doing poorly based on the census response rate data.
The dashboard shows the response rates of the four quadrants. To look at more analytics / data,
The search icon lets you see information on a specific address or place
The home icon takes you back to the main map
The third icon lets you see information on the legend. Dark orange to bright orange is is low response to medium response rates, and then light blue to darker blues shows the trend of low-high response rates to high response rates.
The fourth icon lets you choose which map you would like to view, such as
Neighborhood service quadrants
City council districts
Neighborhood areas
Above is the mapping for response rates in each City council district in Rochester - Northwest, Northeast, South and East, respectively.
Above is the mapping for response rates in neighborhood areas within the City of Rochester. From the mapping, response rates drastically increase as you move from the inner-city to surrounding center city areas, which happen to be more affluent / have more resources. Mapping analysis suggests that strong neighborhood investment / access to resources may be a correlate to increased response rates for the census.
This is the daily response rate tracker, so people conducting outreach can see the impact of their outreach efforts by checking to see how people are responding by quadrant by day. If a quadrant is performing low on a day, they can then implement and strategize on an outreach plan in that area to improve response rates.
City of Rochester Census Self-Response Dashboard – Outreach Strategy
This dashboard was tailored to low census response rate tracts, so as to focus strategically on the HTC areas within the City of Rochester in terms of outreach. We know with the digital divide, strategy had to be targeted and active. By getting this tool in the hands of community leaders / groups / organizations, we were able to focus in on the areas that were low responding, and then in turn, do outreach (phone banking, text banking, door to door outreach, etc.) which could bridge that divide and help increase census response rates.
The response rate dashboard also included a link at the bottom of the page to fill out the census, a number to call if they need any assistance, and an email (census@cityofrochester.gov, that I monitored)
Outreach Strategy - What was it?
Based on the low response census tracts in specific neighborhoods, we used this information to guide organizations, community leaders, and advocates to increase response rates in the respective communities that they serve.
By having a dashboard that specifically monitored the response rates in City of Rochester specific neighborhoods, we created a more interactive, engaging, and most importantly, strategic resource to help community leaders increase the response rates.
We created a list of groups to reach out to with the dashboard. For each group, I mapped out neighborhood areas with low response rates, respective to areas that the community groups serve / advocate for. For example, City Council and County Legislature officials serve specific parts of the City of Rochester. Based on their district, I would map out areas that were low responding to include in their outreach plan. Based on this mapping, I would then consult on a best outreach strategy for outreach -- whether it be door to door canvassing, hosting an event where Census workers can assist residents with filling out the census, phone banking / text banking for certain neighborhoods, etc. By strategizing this way, we made sure that this dashboard would be used as widely as possible, by community leaders that serve City residents. Below are a list of some of the main groups I reached out to to get out the census count:
● Neighborhood association presidents
● Neighborhood association members
● Activist / advocate organizations, community organizers
● Political candidates
● Elected officials
● Church groups/leaders
● Schools
● Universities in the Rochester region
● Non-profits, agencies, organizations in the Complete Count Committee
● Community influencers
● Regional representatives of the United States Census Bureau