Census deadline even closer than before, could mean trouble for East Albany

ALBANY, Ga. – The 2020 census might not be on the forefront of everyone’s mind in the midst of a pandemic but the deadline to get them in is coming to a close.

The decennial population count was moved to Oct 31st due to the pandemic. But it’s being moved again to the end of September.

“Rather than three months left, we have two months left for everyone in the county to be counted. That is very unfortunate, it decreases the amount of time that they’re going to be out there knocking on doors trying to get people to respond,” says Paul Forgey, director of Planning and Development Services for the city of Albany and Dougherty County.

Having one less month may mean Albany’s hard-to-reach populations could be left behind. Like the residents in East Albany. 

At a response rate of 31.7%, the area is doing the worst in Dougherty County. And East Albany Commissioner Jon Howard says COVID-19 is not to be blamed for the low response in his area.

“As for the coronavirus, you can’t blame it all on that, but trying to get my constituents to understand the importance of doing it is almost like pulling their wisdom tooth… we need an all out blitz,” says Howard.

But there is some good news.

“The good news is that we’ve made some significant progress over the past two weeks, we’re up about .5% which doesn’t sound like a lot but that represents about 1,800 households,” says Forgey.

And each and every person in those households is worth a lot of money in regards to the census. Which is why communities stress the importance of filling out the questionnaire. 

“Each person that’s not counted costs the community about between $20,000-$30,000 over the 10 year period between this census and the next one,” states Forgey.