The Town of Paradise is just beginning its 2020 Census, but it has been delayed by Coronavirus. According to the U.S. Census Bureau website, Paradise’s self-response rate is just 6.4 percent, but the bureau says that was expected.

Butte County’s number self-response rate is at 38.7 percent which is below the statewide self-response number of 52.2 percent. Chico’s self-response number is at 45.2 percent.

Self-Response occurs in areas where the majority of housing units have mail delivered to the physical location of the housing unit. It is the primary enumeration methodology for the 2020 Census.

In 2010, Paradise’s self-response rate was 70.8 percent, but that was prior to the 2018 Camp Fire, which forced the evacuation of its more than 26,000 residents.

The reason for the 2020 low self-response rate isn’t a surprise to the U.S. Census Bureau. It says that is because Paradise had designated large areas of Paradise as Update Leave.

By comparison, Chico is almost entirely a self-response designated area.

Update leave occurs in areas where the majority of housing units either do not have mail delivered to the physical location of the housing unit, or the mail delivery information for the housing unit cannot be verified.

That’s when the bureau will send people to leave the paper census with residents to respond with by online, phone, or by mail.

Some residents who are under self-response and have received an invitation to in the mail should respond now by online, phone, or by mail. The rest are being encouraged to wait until a paper census is left at home.

And when they do respond, it will have a census ID number with it. That number is associated with the residence, but not the resident.

Update leave was supposed to have been finished by April 14, but the Coronavirus has pushed that pushed back to June 13, when residents can expect to start seeing census takers drop off invitations to respond and paper questionnaires at the front doors of 5 million households stateside while updating the addresses.

The census consists of nine confidential questions that can be answered on a phone or tablet. The answers are confidential

Field Offices are expected to start again on June 1 when they start administrative, training, deployment, and support activities for peak data collection operations. This includes selecting and hiring field staff.

In August, the bureau will begin its nonresponse followup where census takers will interview households in person.

That will begin on August 11 and conclude on Halloween. The census is used to send out hundreds of billions of dollars per year in federal funds are allocated based on the population count. It’s also used for redistricting purposes, according to the constitution.