COUNTYWIDE : Census Takers Start Going Door-to-Door

Autumn Schweitzer’s efforts to count heads for the U.S. Census Bureau started with a bang Thursday. Of a door. In her face.

Schweitzer just wanted to ask a few questions for the census, but a little boy inside the cramped apartment hardly had time for such adult pursuits. Bang went the door, and Schweitzer turned and let out a laugh along with crew leader Rick Gilbert. Fortunately, a baby-sitter came to the rescue a few seconds later.

So it went on Day One of the Census Bureau’s effort to follow up on the roughly 300,000 households in Orange County that failed to return the once-a-decade national questionnaire. There were a few slammed doors, some dubious looks by wary residents, but mostly a fair share of cooperation, authorities said.

In Orange County and across the country, the return rate for the census has been at a historic low, with about 67% of the households mailing back the questionnaire, compared to 83% of households responding during the last census.

Going door-to-door to count one out of three residents in the county might seem a daunting task, but Schweitzer, Gilbert and other census employees are pressing ahead with gung-ho zeal.

“I think this job is important,” said Schweitzer, who is fitting her work with the census in between her job as a professional house cleaner. “It seems personal to ask some of these questions, but it’s important.”

Corina Estevane, another census enumerator, noted that the information gleaned from the census is used to map out where federal money goes for everything from school lunch programs to road work. Residents may be wary, but she quickly explains the importance of the national survey.

“It seemed like they didn’t want to say how many people lived there,” Estevane said after returning from one apartment in a jam-packed complex along a busy boulevard in Anaheim. “But once I explained to them all the information is confidential, they relaxed.”

More than 1,600 workers began fanning out in earnest Thursday with census-taker badges and briefcases with red, white and blue stickers on them. Those working nights will don white vests.

For their safety, enumerators in some of the county’s heavier crime areas are working in pairs, with one person taking the count and another acting as a lookout for danger. Census officials say they will go to a single household three times and make three phone calls to try to reach residents.

If this fails, they will speak with neighbors to glean the basics of any household that cannot be contacted. And if that proves fruitless, the bureau will analyze a sampling of the neighborhood and include an adjustment to account for the residents of the household.

Census officials can only speculate as to why so few questionnaires were returned, both in Orange County and nationwide, where little more than 60% of the population mailed back a census form.