MCLENNAN COUNTY, Texas — U.S. Census takers are set to start making in-person visits to households that have not responded to the 2020 census in McLennan County.
Although the self-response rate is 58.5 percent for the county, the Census Bureau will visit remaining addresses to collect responses.
The Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control have trained census takers to follow CDC recommendations to mitigate the potential spread of COVID-19 during census interviews.
The recommendations followed include wearing face masks, maintaining social distance of six feet or more, practicing hand hygiene, not entering homes and conducting interviews outside as much as possible or practical.
Household members visited by census staff are encouraged to maintain social distancing during interviews and practice the CDC's other recommendations as much as possible.
Households can still respond by completing and mailing back the paper questionnaire they received, by responding online or by phone at 844-330-2020. Households can also respond online or by phone in one of 13 languages and find assistance in many more. Those that respond will not need to be visited to obtain their response.
More about the census and census takers
Census takers are hired from local communities and all of them speak English, and many are bilingual. If a census taker does not speak the householder's language, the household may request a return visit fro a census taker who does. Census takers will also have materials on hand to help identify the household's language.
If no one is home when the census taker visits, the census taker will leave a notice of their visit with information about how to respond online, by phone or mail.
Census takers can be identified by a valid government ID badge with their photo, a U.S. Department of Commerce watermark and an expiration date on the badge. To confirm a census taker's, identity, the public may contact the Denver/Dallas Regional Census Center at 972-510-1800 and speak with a Census Bureau representative.
