Get Counted in 2020!

Project HOME is a proud partner of Keystone Counts, a statewide nonpartisan coalition of advocacy groups, service providers, and community organizations working together to build an education and outreach effort to ensure a fair and accurate 2020 census. We want to be sure our KEYSTONE COUNTS! Project HOME is also partnering with Philly Counts 2020, the City’s effort to support the next United States Census.

Every 10 years, the U.S. Constitution requires a count of all people living in the United States. The census ensures fair political representation. And community leaders rely on census data to make good decisions about schools, hospitals, housing, and other community needs

What’s at stake for Pennsylvania?

• RESOURCES: Federal programs allocate funding based on census data, so an undercount could drastically reduce the resources coming to Pennsylvania for education, health care, housing, veterans, seniors, and much more. This impact would last for the next ten years. (See opposite side.)  
• REPRESENTATION: Because U.S. House of Representatives is apportioned according to census data, Pennsylvania could easily lose one or more representatives after the 2020 census, especially with an undercount. Because state legislative districts are also drawn based on census data, communities that are undercounted would go underrepresented for the next decade.  
• COMMUNITY SUPPORT: Aside from funding and political representation, local government, philanthropic, and community leaders also rely on census data to know where to fund, build, or invest. Not being counted literally means becoming invisible to these decision-makers.

The Census Must Go On! Changes Due to COVID-19

According to information provided by the Census Bureau, effective March 23, 2020, all operations have been delayed by two weeks. The planned date for 2020 Census data collection has been moved to August 14, 2020. The Census Bureau will continue to monitor COVID-19 developments and make additional modifications to their timeline as necessary. All field operations have been suspended until April 1, 2020. Service-based Enumeration (one of the operations counting people experiencing homelessness) will now be taking place April 29-May 1, 2020. A full list of the Census operations adjustments can be found in the Philly Counts’ at-home census action toolkit (this is a live document subject to weekly updates, so it will be important to check back frequently to ensure you have the most up-to-date information) or https://2020census.gov.

TAKE ACTION!

You can still complete the census in the following ways:

• ONLINE at https://2020census.gov
• PHONE at 844-330-2020
• MAIL, paper form if it was mailed to you