City of DeKalb and Northern Illinois University officials recently visited the monthly Beloved Community Potluck dinner to talk about the 2020 census.
Residents had many of questions and concerns about the count. One of the major concerns was if they could trust the government with their information.
Adam Grubbs is the city of DeKalb's management intern.
“I think there is a lot of mistrust in the government. So that’s a very big issue. I think just people not being educated on what it is,” he said.
Rhodalyne Q. Gallo-Crail is an Asian American immigrant and an instructor at NIU. She said her community group was hesitant to participate in any type of information that may be stored in a database. She said she felt more comfortable after attending the meeting.
“Before tonight, I don’t have any trust of many of the policies of the government,” she said.
She said she now understands the importance and that she will help others in her community understand.
DeKalb resident Earnell Brown said he always participated in the census. He said he has friends in the Latino community who are hesitant because of deportation fears.
“I’m very involved with different individuals in the Hispanic community that have voices that are good friends of mine and their concern is -- how does this affect the families,” he said.
Sherrie Taylor is a senior research specialist for the Center for Research Studies at NIU. She said confidentiality is a huge issue.
“A lot of people who don’t trust government, it’s because they’re afraid of what’s going to happen to their data after the census collects it," she said. "That information is all protected by Title 13.”
Title 13 of the United States Code ensures that private information is never published. This includes names, addresses and telephone numbers. It also ensures that the personal information can’t be used against respondents by any court or government agency.
Earnell Brown said the issue in his community is not so much trust but a lack of education. Brown is African American.
“If we do report, how does it help us? Ours is disinformation and misinformation as to what the effect the census will have on us directly,” he said.
Taylor said people can educate themselves by going to the census.gov website.
“If you just type in 2020 census on their site, you’ll get to all of their public service announcements as well as a lot of informational brochures on what folks can do," she said.
Taylor said this is the first year that the census can be taken online.
“This only comes around every ten years and it’s really, really important that everybody participates.”
She said if everyone responds by mail, phone or via online then they don’t have to send census takers out to knock on doors. Taylor says sending census takers out increases the costs for taxpayers.
Adam Grubbs said that DeKalb County didn’t get an accurate count of the community during the 2010 census. He said only 80% of the population was captured which led to an annual loss of $38 million. This loss impacted the last 10 years.
“That money could have went to streets, it could have went to fund health care programs other educational programs and then also services and programs that the city provides for the residents," he said.
He also said an inaccurate count can impact how DeKalb is heard in the federal and state government.