An American tradition that started in 1790 has been renewed in Downtown Tucson. It's the 2010 Decennial Census, and the preparations for southern Arizona's part of it are ongoing this year at 1 E. Congress St.
As mandated by the U.S. Constitution, the Census will be conducted next year by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of the Census, as it is in every year ending in zero.
The constitutional purpose of the Census is to establish congressional districts balanced by population, but the count of the American population is used to generate statistics about the demographics of America that will be used for the next ten years by business and industry in decisions about locating new commercial and residential ventures, and by all levels of government in planning new public facilities. Local jurisdictions and interest groups are generally very interested in the Census counts, because they are used to allocate federal funding based on population.
The Tucson Early Local Census Office (ELCO) set up shop above U.S. Bank in October 2008, and will stay open into the fall of 2010. According to Local Census Office Manager Jesse Nino, the Tucson operation, like its counterparts around the country, is spending 2009 updating the Census Bureau's address lists, so that every individual living in the U.S. is ultimately counted on Census Day, April 1, 2010.
All residential addresses were verified and mapped in the spring during the Address Canvassing operation, and now the Bureau is conducting interviews at "group quarters" such as prisons, nursing homes, dormitories, homeless shelters, religious quarters, military bases, RV parks, campgrounds, and other places where unrelated people live together.
Around 40 full-time employees work at the Census office in Downtown every weekday, according to Nino, and the office employs about 250 others who work out in the field. Some of those report to the Downtown office for training or to bring in work from the field, while others are deployed throughout southern Arizona.
After the current operation is completed, the area for which the Downtown office is responsible will be split, and a new office in Marana will cover all of the rural areas in the southern part of the state, outside of Yuma and Tucson. The Downtown office will continue to manage future operations in preparation for the 2010 Census in metro Tucson itself. Those efforts will culminate in the largest operation conducted from Census field offices; "we'll go door-to-door completing questionnaires, approaching those people that haven't completed and returned them in the mail," says Nino. There will be significant hiring of temporary workers for that effort, which takes place from February to May 2010.
Nino says that during the Address Canvassing operation this past spring, the Census Bureau used technology for the first time, with each "lister" using a hand-held computer to verify, update, and map the Bureau's massive database of residential addresses.
The Bureau takes confidentiality of private information very seriously, however. Each Census worker is sworn to keep private any information about persons and even addresses where people live, and the Bureau does not share information with other federal agencies. Personal information collected through Census operations is not publicly released for 72 years.
Downtown's temporary boost in employment from the Tucson Local Census Officeand the attendant bump in sales at nearby restaurants and convenience storeswill wind up by September 30, 2010.
