In about two months, paperwork for the 2020 census will begin to arrive across the country. For many within certain communities, the envelope not only carries a government form but also a sense of fear.

“The fear with engaging with the government was huge,” Director of Worcester Interfaith Isabel Gonzalez said. “Even after the citizen question went away, the sharing of information with the government was still real and it’s still real to this day”

Fear rose from a question that required respondents to answer a citizenship question on the 2020 census. The Supreme Court blocked it last June, yet concerns of misinformation still linger.

“I worry about that very much because you have a president who, I can say accurately, is a bigot, who wakes up every day and tries to figure out how he can demonize immigrants,” U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern said. “So you scare the hell out of a whole bunch of people. We need every person to be counted here. That includes people who may not be documented. We need every college student to be documented. We need every new immigrant here to be counted.”

The reason leaders from McGovern in Congress and Gonzalez in Worcester place such an importance on accuracy and high participation in the census goes beyond reporting a city’s population.

The census leads directly to funding for roads, education, health care and more.

“We as a city stand to gain federal funding based on the number of people that we demonstrate to have,” said Edgar Luna of the Worcester Executive Office of Economic Development. “At stake is $675 billion, which is allocated annually to cities and towns across the country.”

Individually, every person that is not counted in the census could cost a city anywhere from $1,400 to $2,900 annually, according to government officials across the country. Since the census is only taken once every 10 years, that figure grows to $14,000 to $29,000 per uncounted person.

In Worcester during the 2000 and 2010 censuses, only about 70 percent of the city households participated, according to the city. That rate of participation left about 60,000 people that weren’t counted.

Historically, Luna said, the populations that don’t respond to the census are new immigrants, children and minorities. Some believe the idea of a citizenship question on the census, even if untrue, increased the potential of those populations avoiding the census.

However, Worcester implemented a strategy that began taking shape about a year and a half ago. Its goal was to increase participation to at least 90 percent.

It involves connecting with community organizers who already have trust within the community to highlight the importance of the census.

"If I’m talking to the Southeast Asian community, if they don’t know me from a hole in the wall, that’s not the best strategy,” Gonzalez said. “Now if I’m training staff at the Southeast Asian Coalition [relaying the message] that to their messengers, then they trust the message.”

Worcester’s census campaign includes a Complete Count Committee (CCC), which includes key members of the community as well as elected and non-elected city officials.

They meet monthly along with community organizers to develop a strategy to connect with specific neighborhoods. Relationships are developed through festivals, churches and community programs.

Luna attended the St. Patrick’s Day Parade last year and will again this year. He’s going to connect with mosques in the city. Having the ability to speak Spanish, Luna also attempts to reach residents through their native language.

“We’re a diverse community as you can see. We have different immigrant populations coming in every day, different minority groups in the city,” assistant city clerk Niko Vangeli said. “We just want to showcase the best we can in terms of those numbers. We don’t want people to be fearful to write down their ethnicity.”

Vangeli began crafting a list of every household in the city in 2018. Like in years past, that list is provided to the U.S. Census Bureau.

After a household participates, it’s logged. After a month, the census will then employees to the houses that didn’t participate. Using that data, the city hopes to better work with the community in those remaining homes to explain the importance of participating and ease any fears.

“I did it in 2010 and we did the best that we could, but now the technology has changed,” Luna said. “Niko is working with us. So this has been an extremely, extremely wonderful experience.”

In discussing initiatives with others from different cities, Gonzalez is confident in the methods implemented so far by officials in Worcester.

“I think it’s been an asset to develop this model,” Gonzalez said. “That I don’t think a lot of cities have.”