CENSUS BUREAU WORKERS WILL HIT THE STREETS NEXT WEEK

Census Bureau workers will take to the streets this winter to verify residential addresses throughout Cape Girardeau County and Scott City.

The block-by-block canvassing will begin Monday and run through Feb. 26.

Similar address checks will be made throughout Missouri and Oklahoma during that time period, said Tom Beaver, a spokesman for the Census Bureau's regional office in Kansas City.

The focus will be largely on housing addresses in cities, Beaver said. But the addresses on all 20,477 housing units in Cape Girardeau County will be checked as part of the verification process, Beaver said.

The address-checking activities are scheduled to take place throughout the nation as the federal agency gears up for the 2000 census.

In the six-state Midwest region, the address verification work in Oklahoma and Missouri will be followed by similar efforts in Iowa, Kansas and Arkansas starting in March and in Minnesota starting in April.

The verification effort is designed to help ensure the accuracy of the address list used to mail out about 120 million questionnaires for the 2000 census.

Census Bureau workers will add new housing units as warranted and check for housing units not readily visible such as single-family homes that have been subdivided into apartments and garages and basements that have been converted into living quarters.

The temporary workers will add, correct or delete addresses as necessary.

Address listers will display red, white and blue badges that read "Census Enumerator." The badges will contain the worker's name and the seal of the U.S. Department of Commerce-Bureau of the Census.

Locally, the address verification work will be handled by one crew leader and nine enumerators.

"They will be out walking the streets," said Beaver. If there isn't a street number on a house or the census worker can't see it, he or she will knock on the door and seek to have the occupant verify the address.

In Missouri alone, more than 1,000 temporary workers are expected to hit the streets, Beaver said.

For the first time ever, the Census Bureau has entered into a partnership with the U.S. Postal Service to use its address information to improve the accuracy of the census mailing list. A new law allows the Census Bureau to take that action and to share its address list with the Postal Service, and local and tribal governments.

This time, local governments have the opportunity to review the mailing list at the front end rather than after the census questionnaires have been mailed out and returned. Under this procedure, local governments won't have any input after the census has been taken.

Beaver said the goal is to have a more accurate list to begin with so as to avoid the complaints that occurred after the 1990 census.

"When we miss people it is because we didn't have their address," said Beaver.

Like all census information, the mailing address information is confidential. Local governments aren't allowed to use the census list for other purposes. It can't be provided to marketers or others for direct mail campaigns.

The Census Bureau hires local people to check the addresses. Local people know their own community the best, which helps ensure accuracy, he said.

The Census Bureau still has temporary jobs to fill. Beaver said interested persons can call the Kansas City office at 1-888-325-7733.

"At our peak operation, we will have 285,000 people working for us," said Beaver. The peak operation will be in April and May 2000.

Except in census years, the bureau is a small agency by federal standards with a work force of about 5,000.

It's no small task to count a nation of more than 270 million people, Beaver said.

It's important that people fill out the questionnaires, which will be mailed in mid-March 2000.

It will be hand delivered to those with rural-route addresses or post office boxes, Beaver said.

"This is a geography based operation," he explained. The federal government and local governments need to know the exact location where a person resides.

Beaver said it is important for people to fill out the census.

"Every year more than $100 billion in federal funds is awarded to local governments based on census figures," he said. "It is really in everybody's best interest to fill the form out."