News Photo by Julie Riddle A sign outside the main office of the Northeast Michigan Community Service Agency touts the importance of being counted in the 2020 census.

ALPENA — It’s 30 days and counting until the deadline for the 2020 census, and local leaders are fretting that an inaccurate count will mean less money for them to spend trying to help the people of Northeast Michigan.

While millions of people nationwide have responded online during an initial self-reporting phase of the census — 70% of Michiganders had done so by the end of last week — several communities in the Alpena region are scarcely represented as door-to-door canvassers swing into the last weeks of the once-a-decade count.

An undercount of those areas could add up to the millions of dollars lost to Northeast Michigan residents.

“We’ve got a long way to go,” said Patrick Heraghty, executive director of the Community Foundation for Northeast Michigan, “and we’ve got a short time to get there.”

While 69% of Alpena County and 50% of Presque Isle residents had been counted as of Thursday, only 38% of people in Alcona and Montmorency counties were counted.

Only four counties in the state have lower self-reporting numbers, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Almost one-half of people in Alpena County who have been counted filled out the census online. In Alcona and Montmorency counties — both with highly rural populations and low internet access — only 14% of people responded via computer, tablet, or smartphone.

For the first time, in 2020, the U.S. Census Bureau allowed online reporting. That decision was made before the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. but ended up being a fitting step in preventing the coronavirus’s spread by keeping census takers away from people as possible.

The decision that made participating in the census easier for many added a challenge to the once-a-decade count in places like Northeast Michigan, where many people don’t have access to computers or internet service.

Alpena-area efforts to promote the census have been spearheaded by Heraghty.

He’s worried, he said.

He’s not alone. Only 5% of Michigan’s local government leaders are very confident that the 2020 census will be accurate, according to a poll taken this spring by the University of Michigan.

And inaccurate numbers could mean big bucks lost.

An estimated 16% of Northeast Michiganders won’t fill out the census, the U.S. Census Bureau predicted, even before the coronavirus hit.

That amounts to a potential loss of $44.5 million to Alpena-area residents, each year, for the next 10 years.

At least $50,000 in federal grant money, regranted to local agencies by the Community Foundation for Northeast Michigan, has funded flyers, posters, speakers, and other efforts by agencies to push for a high census response rate. The News received a grant from the foundation for a project that asked area residents to discuss how they’ve used census data in genealogy. That project is available online at https://tinyurl.com/y8nqmcjz.

Still, the census numbers are low. And, with a month left before time runs out, people with something to lose by an undercount are nervous.

The census determines how many dollars come into the Alpena area for things like Medicaid and Medicare, broadband infrastructure, road improvements, nutritional support, and free and reduced lunches.

The people most in need of the money are, ironically, the same people who are hardest to count, said Fran Whitney, outreach coordinator for the Northeast Michigan Community Service Agency in Alpena.

Agencies like NEMCSA — which rely heavily on grants and other outside funding — serve many rural, low-income, and senior residents. Those are the very people who probably have the most difficulty getting online to self-report and are the hardest for door-knocking census takers to find, Whitney said.

If enough government dollars are lost because the region is undercounted, NEMCSA may not be able to help preschoolers get a start on a positive life trajectory, she predicted. They may not be able to help people insulate their drafty homes.

Heraghty, at the Community Foundation, doesn’t know how many census takers are working in the area, but he’s heard the U.S. Census Bureau has had trouble finding people to knock on doors. A federal watchdog agency said last month that the bureau is short by more than 25% of the door knockers needed for the 2020 census, the Associated Press reported.

A representative of the Traverse City office that oversees the census in the Alpena area couldn’t say how many census takers are currently on the ground. A state-level census representative acknowledged that many people who initially accepted the census-taker job have since quit, some out of concern for their health.

It’s been hard to recruit more, she said.

Heraghty spied his first census-taker a few days ago, knocking on a neighbor’s door.

It was her first day on the job, she told him. In four hours of work, she’d encountered one aggressive dog and had one door slammed in her face.

Even in the “warm and friendly port” of Alpena, not everyone is willing to answer the door to a stranger — especially in 2020, said Joe Gentry, executive director of the United Way of Northeast Michigan.

Coronavirus cautions and political angst have made people wary, he said.

In Montmorency County, at least one resident called police to report a suspicious person who turned out to be a census-taker in their neighborhood, the county Sheriff’s Department said.

Census takers have other obstacles in Northeast Michigan. Numerous second-home owners mean many stops at front doors where nobody is home, and long, rutted rural roads — often with little to no GPS service to give directions — place many rural folks nearly out of reach.

In a region with spotty internet access, many people rely on their public library to get online. Libraries were closed during the first stage of the census, though, because of the coronavirus.

The Alpena County Library left its wifi signal on during the library’s closure, providing some internet access from outside the building, but residents without technology of their own couldn’t go inside to use the library’s public computers to make themselves counted.

Now, the library stands to be injured if the census isn’t accurate. Though library programs probably won’t feel much of a pinch from direct funding reduction, the state is in danger of losing a congressional seat if numbers statewide dip too low, according to Library Director Eric Magness-Eubank.

The trickle-down effect of losing a congressman would affect everyone locally, Magness-Eubank said. With his or her region expanded to make up for the loss, the elected leader for our area would have less time to hear the concerns of Northeast Michiganders.

Some residents are getting help being counted through the Census Bureau’s Mobile Questionnaire Assistance program — official census workers who show up in high-visibility spots in regions where self-reporting numbers have been low. Workers can help residents complete the survey either on their own devices or on a Census tablet.

Mobile questionnaire assistance will be available at a pop-up food pantry scheduled noon Thursday at the APlex, Heraghty said.

There’s still time for residents to fill out the 10-minute survey — it can still be done online.

To be counted

Respond online at 2020census.gov or give 10 minutes to a census taker. All staff will carry an ID badge with their name, photograph, and U.S. Department of Commerce watermark seal, and an expiration date, and will carry an official Census Bureau-issued bag and tablet, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.