LYNN — Driving around Lynn, it’s hard not to notice the more than 100 red and blue signs asking people to visit www.my2020census.com and respond to the U.S. census.
These signs are part of an “all-out visual campaign” that has just been launched in order to increase the number of Lynn residents’ responses to the U.S. census, according to Janet Rowe, the city’s election chief.
Several weeks ago, when the idea of a visual campaign was conceived, Lynn’s response rate to the census was approximately 44 percent, compared to the state-wide response at that time of 61 percent.
Now, the city’s response rate is 55.8 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That rate is still below the current state-wide rate of 62.7 percent, and national rate of 60.6 percent, but has increased in part thanks to organizers with the city, the New American Center, and Leo Inc., who have pushed for more people to reply.
“These are trying times for
everyone and many businesses, churches, organizations, and schools are suffering,” Rowe said. “It has become very difficult to push the 2020 Census since we cannot meet and socialize with each other.”
Rowe said due to the COVID-19 pandemic, organizers haven’t been able to go to popular meeting places, such as churches, to ask people to respond to the census, and they’ve had to adapt different strategies, hence the visual campaign. In addition to the more than 100 signs put up around the city already, the city has 100 more signs ready to be put in front of businesses, organizations, churches, and residences, if people are willing to volunteer to have a sign.
Those willing to volunteer may call Rowe at City Hall at (781) 586-6742, or email [email protected]. Rowe said efforts so far have definitely helped increase Lynn’s response rate. Every person counted in the census represents federal and state money coming to the community, she said.
“We’re such a big city and we’re so undercounted. We need those numbers to go up, especially with all the kids in the schools,” Rowe said. “We need that money for the schools, for roads, for housing.”
Rowe also said the city has also distributed thousands of flyers in health care kits handed out by the Lynn Fire and Police departments, in Salvation Army food boxes, and grab-and-go lunches handed out at the schools. More flyers will be sent out and the city is working to put up five billboards at the end of June.
The effort to raise Lynn’s census numbers has been collaborative, and Michelle Guzman, census outreach program coordinator for the New American Center, said the New American Center has been trying to reach people who are immigrants or refugees to get them to respond.
“It definitely has been a challenge. It’s not necessarily that people don’t want to answer,” Guzman said. “There are some who have difficulties with physically using the technology, others have a language barrier.”
The New American Center’s goal has been to get an additional 700 to 1,000 people in Lynn to respond. Guzman would not say how far the group has until it reaches that goal, but that the New American Center is hiring speakers of the Cambodian language Khmer, and then Arabic, Russian, and Haitian creole speakers to help other non-English speakers respond.
“I want to have our own international army to reach out to people,” Guzman said.
While the U.S. census website is available in several different languages, Guzman said there still needs to be an effort to reach these people who may not respond otherwise. The New American Center is also making phone calls asking people to respond, circulating information online, and having in-person meetings with immigrants.
Leo Inc., which provides services for adults and children in the Lynn area, including early childhood education and services to mitigate food insecurity, has also been pushing for more people to respond to the census, asking the families it serves and including a link on its website to allow easy online response.
“Census 2020 is crucial to our community’s growth and future stability,” reads a Leo Inc. statement. “Census data decides financial support for our local schools, service programs, hospitals and health care facilities, elder services, food programs (SNAP), repairs to roads and bridges, fair political representation, and more.”
According to Leo Inc., Lynn was one of the lowest responding communities in the state back during the last census in 2010, and the city is “still suffering from the lack of data.”