Lorain County Complete Count Committee celebrates 2020 census success

The 2020 census may be over, but Lorain County's Complete Count Committee hopes to tackle other issues with the same collaborative effort. El Centro de Servicios Sociales Executive Director Victor Leandry and members of the committee from around the county traded a planned in-person celebration for a Zoom meeting Tuesday morning, recapping efforts to reach 75.6 percent response rates across the county. The committee began its efforts less than a month before the deadline to form a committee, Leandry said. Committee members met Jan. 9, 2020 — the day before the deadline to form a committee — packing about 80 people in a room. The meeting was so well-attended, the then-director of the U.S. Census Bureau, Steven Dillingham, met with the committee, Leandry said. Nonprofits in the county were able to connect with often undercounted communities. Achilles Morales of the Lorain County Urban League visited with individuals in low-income housing complexes, connecting enumerators with individuals. Workers from El Centro went door-to-door in South Lorain, helping translate for the city's Spanish-speaking households and overcoming concerns individuals may have had about immigration status. In Avon and Avon Lake, Mayors Bryan Jensen and Greg Zilka took a more competitive approach, challenging each other to get a higher self-response rate. Avon Lake Economic Development Director Ted Esborn said the duel for self-reporting was slow, but encouraged North Ridgeville and Grafton to join the competition. Social media efforts like videos helped keep people interested during the pandemic, Esborn said. County churches and health care providers also joined the effort, alongside financial backing from the Lorain County Community Foundation and Nord Family Foundation. The committee hosted events every month in 2020, reaching out to underserved communities through caravans and pop-ups, putting up videos, flyers and billboards. The 2020 census shows there is a process for community leaders and organizations to work together — even in the middle of a pandemic — to finish 210 out of more than 3,000 counties in the country, Leandry said. There are other challenges the group can lend itself to, such as food insecurity, reducing poverty rates and transportation, he said, challenging them to continue the coalition and boost response rates for the 2030 census. County Commissioner Matt Lundy agreed. While committee members can celebrate the work done in 2020 to reach the majority of residents for self-response to the census, there is unfinished work and untapped potential to keep the group together and revisit larger issues. Contact Carissa Woytach at (440) 329-7245 or cwoytach@chroniclet.com.