KOJO NNAMDIYou're tuned in to the Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU 88.5, welcome. Later in the broadcast Montgomery County's growth and growing pains. How can residents shape the blueprint of the county's future? But first when is the last day to fill out your 2020 census? That's the question local census organizers and advocates continue to ask. A few days ago, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration's attempt to end census counting early. And said the count must continue until the end of the month. The Trump administration then defied that order saying censuses efforts would end on October 5th. It was only yesterday that a federal appeals court ruled the census count should continue.

KOJO NNAMDIAre you still following? Well, that the very whiplash local census workers and advocates are experiencing as they enter the final stretch of their count. Joining us now is Kavitha Cardoza, Special correspondent for WAMU. Kavitha, welcome.

KAVITHA CARDOZAThank you so much for inviting me, Kojo.

NNAMDIYou are more than welcome, Kavitha. You are -- you've been reporting on the final push to make sure everyone is counted here on our region. We just talked about the back and forth over when the census ends. What has all that uncertainty meant for census workers here?

CARDOZAI think, Kojo, a lot of confusion. They start their messaging like a year or at least 18 months in advance because they know what's at stake. And so this has been really confusing for them. And the messaging like then they have to pass that messaging on and it's not a clear message. If you do things at the last moment, like me, the deadline -- you know, having the deadline constantly shift is not helping their efforts. And remember this is already -- there's a context of confusion because last year we weren't sure whether we needed -- there as going to be a citizenship question. And, of course, COVID has complicated everything.

NNAMDII was about to get to that. Given the coronavirus pandemic and all the complications it adds, do census workers here feel they'll be able complete their work by October 31st?

CARDOZAI think they really really worried, Kojo. A lot of them would typically go door to door. They would have a lot more interaction with people and, of course, you know, all that has been stopped. A lot of them have been doing Zoom calls. And so they're really worried. But I will say I see a lot of determination, because they just say, whatever the end date is we're just going to keep going until them.

NNAMDIKavitha, it seemed like a bureaucratic exercise, but the census is actually really important. Remind us what is at stake with the 2020 census.

CARDOZAOne point five trillion dollars a year, Kojo. That's how much money gets distributed based on the census. So it's a lot of money. And to put that in context, the nation's economy has about $21 trillion a year in economic activity. It's the foundation for all data that we rely on and about 300 programs. You know, the money flows through about 300 programs. So I think a better question is like is there anything the census data doesn't touch?

NNAMDIYou're absolutely right. It's used in a number of ways people might not think about. And it actually has a big impact on lots of local decisions. Can you talk about that?

CARDOZAIt absolutely trickles down to everyday activities. So everything from how governments allocate funding for healthcare and highways, schools and substance abuse clinics, how much money there is to restore wildlife or deal with wildfires, I mean, all of that is based on census data. There's also how we draw legislative boundaries based on population both for congressional seats and state legislative seats.

CARDOZAAnd then it's even more granular than that, Kojo. I spoke to Andrew Rimmer, he's a professor at George Washington University and he said, say there were two exact same grocery stores in two different places. They would look at census data to see whether one, there was a population that could support having them stay open. And then they would look at demographic information from the census to decide what products to keep in their stores. And so that is just -- you know, it literally is every part of our lives.

NNAMDIYour recent reporting, Kavitha, featured local census workers and organizers ensuring those in hard to count areas were reached. Tell us about some of the census organizers you spoke with starting with one particular Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner or ANC in Washington.

CARDOZAOlivia Henderson it's one of those fantastic moments as a reporter, Kojo, were you're like, oh, my God. I get to meet these super cool people. She was amazing. She was cajoling and dancing and begging and joking and scolding and screaming. At one point she was jumping in front of Metro buses like honk if you completed your census. And I thought, oh my gosh, someone is going to curse her. And they were just honking, you know, yep, we've done it.

CARDOZASo passionate, Kojo, because people like her know what's at stake. Another advocate for the census is Ayana Bias and she's from the United Planning Organization. They are doing a tremendous amount of work to get out -- get people to complete the census.

NNAMDIKavitha, this work matters, because Wards 7 and 8 where they are working are historically the most undercounted in D.C. Kavitha, roughly by how much are lower income communities undercounted compared to other areas.

CARDOZASo I'll give you two stats that rally shocked me. I looked at self-reporting just this morning, Kojo, to give you the most up to date stats. And there's one census tracker in D.C. that has self-reporting of 28 percent. So 28 percent of people only have filled out their census forms. And I looked at one in Northwest D.C. and that was over 90 percent of people.

CARDOZASo there's a huge discrepancy, and then I spoke with Andrew Trueblood who's the D.C. Director of Planning and, you know, D.C. was one of the highest like they counted as a city, one of the highest cities with an undercount and it was 2.2 percent. So you might think, two percent isn't much, but he calculated that translated into about $100 million a year. And census data as we know, you know, lasts for 10 years.

NNAMDIWell, you mentioned Andrew Trueblood. He is the Director of the D.C. Office of Planning. I'd like our audience to hear exactly what he has to say, because you pointed out at 2.2 percent undercount doesn't sound like much, but the financial impact of missing all those people in the city's population is actually pretty stunning. Here's what Andrew Trueblood had to say.

ANDREW TRUEBLOODIf we looked at the 2017 population -- it's about $8700 per person. So that would be about a little over $100 million a year.

NNAMDIThat is absolutely amazing. In your reporting, did you find that people really understand what's at stake here?

CARDOZANo. And I have to be really honest, Kojo, starting with me, I didn't understand. I kind of saw it as, you know, something you have to do. Like you have to vote or you have to, you know, register your vehicle or whatever. I did not realize how important it was. And actually Ayana Bias said to me, you know, we need to be teaching kids as young as, you know, when they get into elementary school like what is the census.

CARDOZAAnd she has lots of -- that organization had about two events a day to kind of get people to fill out their census forms. And a lot of what they did was give out free ice cream or give out free treats. And so when little kids would come by for the ice cream, she wouldn't just say like, oh, where's your mom or where's your dad? Like I want them to fill out the census. She would say, do you know what the census is? Do you know why it's important? And kind of teach them while they were young.

NNAMDIA listener says, I've been a census worker for two months now. My cases have dried up the last few days. I think people in the D.C. Census Office are in a real bind. I don't know what kind of direction they're getting from the main office. And Kavitha, this underscores the confusion we talked about earlier that resulted from the various Trump administration challenges to when the census count should end.

CARDOZAAbsolutely, Kojo. And census workers are critical. You know, all this while we've been talking about advocates or, you know, non-profit advocates who want people to fill out the census. That's different from actual census workers who go door to door and they, you know, ask people to fill it out and can fill it out right there and then. So typically like -- the numbers I've seen, about 20 percent more people actually fill out their census when census workers go door to door. So if this person is confused, you can imagine, you know, what the state of census data collection is.

NNAMDIAnother one of the organizers that you spoke with, Kavitha, was Ingrid Velarde. Ingrid Velarde is a Program supervisor at the Northern Virginia Family Service, a non-profit that provides legal aid and job training among other services. Ingrid Velarde joins us now. Thank you for joining us.

INGRID VELARDEThank you very, Kojo, for having me.

NNAMDITell us about the census work that you and your colleagues are doing.

VELARDEAt Northern Virginia Family Service, we are really good (unintelligible) when we help our families with all their needs. And you name it. We have numbers and numbers of programs that we can offer as health, legal services, education, training for the future, which is our workforce department. We do -- well, prior COVID we used to do one on one with clients and emphasize on the importance of being counted. In this case about census and like Kavitha just mentioned also about voting if that's the case for the clients.

NNAMDIHow did your census outreach change once the pandemic began?

VELARDEWell, everyone's life changed, right, since the pandemic began. Again, it used to be one on one. We are very close with our families that we work with in every single program. And it all switched to be remote most of our programs except for homeless services that we offer. Our shelter in Manassas and our Hunger Resource Center, which is a food bank that we have in Prince William's County that serves all Northern Virginia. Since most of us went remotely we started meeting with clients through Zoom. We have to sometimes teach our client to learn the technology to meet with them to continue our case working management that we do daily continuously to improve their life.

NNAMDIOkay. Got it.

VELARDEAnd at the same time continue with the census information.

NNAMDIGot to take a short break. When we come back we will continue this conversation. If you have called, stay on the line. If you'd like to call, our number is 800-433-8850. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWe're talking about the challenges being faced by local census workers to keep counting despite the legal turmoil that's taking place. We're talking with Kavitha Cardoza, Special correspondent for WAMU. And Ingrid Velarde a Program supervisor at the Northern Virginia Family Service. That's a non-profit that provides legal aid and job training among other services. We're taking your calls at 800-433-8850. Let's start with Carol in Landover, Maryland. Carol, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

CAROLHi. Thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to express that it's been a frustrating, but very rewarding experience to be an enumerator for the last two months. And the community that I was in had so many people, who really needed the money. The communities need the money and they were the hardest people to get to answer the surveys. I had many doors slammed in my face.

NNAMDIWhy do you think they were reluctant to answer the surveys?

CAROLPartly it was because they were afraid of their immigration status and partly because they didn't think it made any difference. I heard this from quite a few people that it didn't make any difference.

NNAMDIIngrid Velarde --

CAROLThey weren't going to see the money.

NNAMDIIngrid Velarde, how do you deal with that?

VELARDEIt's really challenging when you work with immigration community. There's always a fear of trusting the current administration as well as believing that it really works to be counted when they complete a census, and also the fear that either it's not anonymous.

NNAMDIWhat have you been doing over the past few months? How have you made sure families especially in the Latino community fill out their census?

VELARDEI talk to them one on one prior COVID in person and now through Zoom explaining it is for our community, for our children and our families for education, health and other benefits that we can access. And also emphasize a lot because the first impression that they will have is that it will be -- that information will be passed to the government. And I explain that there is a law that covers everyone that is anonymous and all the information that they will provide it will be safe.

NNAMDIWhat are some of the reasons some families are hesitant to fill out the census, Ingrid?

VELARDEWith the immigrant community would be their legal status regardless where they are at the moment either if they are in the process or they haven't begun one yet. That would be one of the biggest fears, and putting just personal and detailed information.

NNAMDIOkay. Back to phones now. Here is Mike in Cheverly, Maryland. Mike, your turn.

MIKEHi. I was -- I work for the 2010 census last time and I became -- I worked my way up to be a field supervisor with 120 enumerators under me. It was quite a wonderful experience for Prince George's County. And I just cannot understand why they don't get this count right. Why the government doesn't stop and make sure we get everyone counted. This is such an important figure.

NNAMDIWell, the Trump administration seems to feel that the count should end earlier than it is supposed to end and, obviously, people who are critical of the Trump administration feel that that's because the administration feels that the more people in challenged and lower income communities are counted then the more those people are likely to vote for democrats. And the Trump administration doesn't clearly want that to happen. But the census is important for more than political reasons. It's important so that communities especially challenged communities can get the kind of federal income that they need. And that's why the judges have been ruling that it has to go until the end of this month. But thank you. Here is Evan in Rockville, Maryland with a related question. Evan, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

EVANHello. Thank you. I have a question. Just because the administration might be kind of mishandling it deliberately or whatever and aside the whole coronavirus pandemic, if we have a census that's botched or that data is no good, how would we even know? How long would that take to figure out? And then is there a possibility that they might take another census in 2021 if there's a different administration?

NNAMDII have no idea. Do you, Kavitha Cardoza?

CARDOZAI will say -- so I'm not totally sure. But I'll tell you what I've heard. One, the census themselves goes back to certain places and they actually do counts and they kind of check it against their data to see how kind of off they are, which is happened in the D.C. undercount. That's how they realized they were. So it's not totally accurate as well, but they do go back and they, you know, revise the estimates. And the second thing is what I've heard is that there won't be another kind of complete census, because it's just too expensive to do.

NNAMDIHere now -- and thank you for your call, Evan. Here now is Helen in Triangle, Virginia. Helen, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

HELENHi. I'm a 73 year old disabled person not much different from any other folks and I was recently evicted, because I did not get lease back to the management office in time in spite of the fact that I told them I was ill. So that was a wakeup call. And during this whole process I just felt this enormous stress to get my ballot to mail it in for the vote, and spent so much time trying to do that with relatives who were helping to find the number. And all I want now especially because Donald Trump wants me not to do it, I want the number of the census so I can fill out my census form. I feel this sense of urgency again. Please, give me the number so I can fill out my census form.

NNAMDIIngrid Velarde, can you help Helen?

VELARDESure, definitely. We are always advocating for our seniors. If we can get a contact for her, I can definitely personally call her and help her to complete the census.

NNAMDIWell, Helen, we'll put you on hold. Our call screener will take your number and we will pass it on to Ingrid Velarde and you'll hopefully get a call from her pretty soon. Thank you for you call. But in relation to Helen's call in which she mentioned that she's recently been evicted, it's my understanding that there are a number of people especially in the Latino community that fear filling out the census, because they figure that if they are exceeding the number of people in their rental property, their landlord could find out. Is that a real fear?

VELARDEThat is correct. That is a real fear, because in the Latino community you will see more than one household living in a single house or even an apartment. You can imagine. So when they do -- when the person is signing a contract with the landlord, of course, there is a max of occupancy for the place, right? And if they exceed that they are in fear that the contract will be terminated and the landlord will ask them to leave.

NNAMDIHere now is Kenny in Lana, Maryland. Kenny, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

KENNYHi. My question is this, so I understood that if we didn't fill out the census online that we would be sent a paper copy. And we have yet to see those paper copies.

NNAMDIDo you know anything about that, Ingrid?

VELARDEYes. Paper copies were sent out early this year. I would say by March they were out. So I'm not sure why an individual would not get it. Probably a change of address or something like that. I know lots of people that don't -- by mail it was done by May because of the COVID there was a delay in people sending those back.

NNAMDIIngrid, last year, the Supreme Court ruled against the Trump administration's plan to include a question on citizenship status on the 2020 census. But even though that question was not added, is it still causing fear in immigrant communities?

VELARDEIt is still. Yes, it's a reality, because even though they listen to news that, you know, sometimes people listen to what they want to listen first. And here there was a thought, an idea, of Trump's administration to put that question that now even though it's not there when they're ask to complete the census they don't believe that it's going to be trustful.

NNAMDIWell, and I'm afraid that's about all the time we have. Ingrid Velarde is a Program supervisor at the Northern Virginia Family Service, a non-profit that provides legal aid and job training among other services. Ingrid Velarde, thank you for joining us.

VELARDEThank you very much for having me today, Kojo.

NNAMDIKavitha Cardoza is a Special correspondent for WAMU, who I miss seeing. But, Kavitha, it was at least great talking with you.

CARDOZAMe too, Kojo. Thank you so much.

NNAMDIWe're going to take a short break. When we come back, Montgomery County's growth and growing pains. How can residents shape the blueprint of the country's future -- the county's future? I'm Kojo Nnamdi.