TYLER, Texas — Census Day is on April 1, 2020.
The goal is to count every person living in the United States.
"It has been mandated by the constitution of the United States that every 10 years, we actually do an accurate count," Jennifer Pope, Partnership Coordinator for the Census Bureau, said.
Funding to East Texas counties is directly related to the population.
Texas received $59.4 Billion from the 2010 census. That money was distributed to different counties, including those in East Texas.
"When we look at grants that come into the state, that's how the county is impacted," Joanne Hampton, Precinct 4 for Smith County, said. "Pop Federal grants from Washington. We want businesses to be able to get grants. We want our schools to be able to get grants."
Funding from the federal government is used for different resources such as transportation, programming, schools, hospitals, medicaid, head start, foster care and more.
One person not filling out the census can equal a loss of $1,500 for the state and counties. Even if only one percent of the population is unaccounted for, the state could lose as much as $300 million.
"$1,500 of potential funding that could've come to this area," Michael Howell, MPO for the City of Tyler said. "That much for every person who is not counted, is what they're forecasting."
However, it is not just money at stake. Representation for the next 10 years is also at stake.
"It draws the district line, in fact for U.S. house representatives, local boards, Et cetera," said Nancy Rangel, chair of the Complete County Committee. "In fact here, after the census we will redraw our lines for our districts and city council seats."
Getting everyone to fill out the census takes effort from organizations such as the 40-member East Texas Complete Count Committee.
"People have always been reluctant to hand out personal and confidential information," Rangel said. "The very first meeting we went through and counted every single hard to count group."
Data for the upcoming census can be found on the Census.gov website. The Response Outreach Area Mapper provides navigation for counties hard to reach areas.
Tracts are shown in different colors. The darker blue tracts are hard to count areas with a predicted low response rates for the 2020 Census. Among the places in East Texas that historically have a population tough to count include parts of Tyler and Nacogdoches.
"The various areas they have broken into regions. It will say if they suspect that it may be a low income area, or a high minority area, or just an area that they suspect probably has more population that has actually been reported," said Howell.
There are several ways to fill out a census without having to do through the traditional door-to-door census workers. You can fill out the census online, through e-mail or via telephone.
You can visit the census website for anything you need to know about the upcoming census.