A rural approach to getting a fair count in the Census

Shannon Namjabadi reports for the Colorado Sun under the headline, "Is Mineral County — population 865 — really one of the fastest-growing counties in Colorado?"  The story is about the efforts of Mineral County administrator Janelle Kukuk to ensure that the county got a fair count in the 2020 census.  The story does a fabulous job of explaining rural difference--in this case as it relates to the decennial U.S. Census.

Here's an excerpt: 

Kukuk had misgivings as soon as she heard how officials planned to conduct the once-a-decade census in tiny Mineral County.

Dropping census packets off at people’s homes might work in cities and suburbs. But in this Colorado county of 865, residents live on sprawling acreages sometimes inaccessible to delivery people. Her UPS packages are left in a lockbox on the side of the highway. Her census packet, delivered last May, was dropped onto a gatepost 5 miles from her house.

The plan, Kukuk thought, was flawed. And it galvanized her to get more involved.

The long-time county administrator got busy contacting every property owner and personally guiding confused or technically challenged residents through the census.

“PLEASE RESPOND,” said one note the county sent. “Mineral County is Counting on You!”

In the end, her monthslong push seems to have worked. When census data was released in August, Mineral County looked like one of the fastest growing counties in the state — not because it’s a boomtown, officials said, but because of Kukuk’s campaign to get a more accurate count of residents than in the 2010 Census. The population increased by 153 residents, up from 712 the decade prior.

“Rural America, rural Colorado doesn’t really come up very high on people’s radars,” said Kukuk, the county administrator since 2015. “But to us, a 153 person difference, that’s huge.”

On paper at least, Mineral County’s 21.5% population increase makes it the only small county to buck the state’s growing divide between the expanding Front Range and stagnating rural areas to the south and east. And it could be a boon for the county as the census guides how $1.5 trillion in federal aid is distributed for programs including affordable housing and Medicaid.

Officials say Mineral County represents a bright spot in the effort to accurately conduct the census in an unusually trying pandemic year, and that it demonstrates the difficulty of reaching rural regions that are among the hardest to tally for the decennial count.

Census forms aren’t delivered to post office boxes, where residents in sparsely populated swaths of the state often receive their mail. Instead, federal census takers go house-to-house in those areas in an attempt to reach as many people as they can. The sheer distance between homes can be challenging for census workers and the arrival of unexpected visitors is not always welcome.