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Despite Pandemic, Maywood Nonprofit’s Census Outreach Doesn’t Miss A Beat


Saturday, May 9, 2020 || By Michael Romain || @maywoodnews 

May should have been the month that Maywood resident Rose Ocampo started ramping up her attendance at local community events like the one she and her colleagues at the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership — a faith-based social justice nonprofit in Maywood — along with entities like the Maywood Count Commission organized in March. 

The event, held at the Quinn Center of St. Eulalia, 1832 S. 8th Ave., drew more than 200 community members and was designed to raise awareness about the census among Maywood’s Latinx community.

But with the COVID-19 pandemic having prompted the cancellation of many in-person events across the village, the CSPL has had to pivot toward a greater emphasis on virtual outreach and phone banking.

The group has a goal of calling 10,000 residents who live in the hardest-to-count census tracts in Proviso Township, particularly in Maywood, Melrose Park and Stone Park, where many Latinx residents live. They hope that they can help increase the village’s self-response rate in order to set it on the path to being fully counted. 

“Our goal is 30,000 people,” Ocampo said, referencing the number of residents who may live in Maywood based on federal government projections. During the last census in 2010, roughly 24,000 people were counted, meaning some 5,000 people were not. The missed residents translated into millions of dollars of lost revenue from the federal government, among other missed opportunities over the past decade.

Ocampo and other CSPL members said that they won’t let the COVID-19 pandemic and the state’s related stay-at-home order stop them from making sure residents are counted.

“We no longer do this work face-to-face, but we continue to do the outreach,” Ocampo said during an interview last month. “We’ve done about 3,000 phone calls so far.”

As of May 5, the group was up to 7,000 phone calls, members said, adding that they obtained the list of numbers from Proviso Township officials.

“Phone banking is probably the most successful way to reach people right now,” said CSPL member Maria Hernandez-Franco.

A Mariachi band performs during the a census outreach even in Maywood on March 8. Since then, the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership, the nonprofit that helped organize the event, has pivoted toward phone banking. | Shanel Romain 

Hernandez-Franco and Ocampo said that the phone calls serve multiple purposes — the ultimate, of course, being to remind people that they can still complete the census and, if necessary, to assist them in doing so. 

“I’ve called a couple people who said that they didn’t know how to fill out the census,” Hernandez-Franco said. “So, I walked one lady through the application process. It took about 15  minutes. She was thankful that I called her. She said that she wasn’t going to fill it out, but that having that one-on-one with someone was very helpful.”

Hernandez-Franco said that it’s important “to get the message out there, because a lot of people think the census is over or that due to COVID-19, it no longer needs to be done.”

Due to COVID-19, Census Bureau officials have changed the self-response deadline from July 31 to Oct. 31. Residents can complete the census online, by mail or over the phone.

As of May 7, 52 percent of households in Maywood completed the census. Statewide, the self-response rate is 63 percent, according to Census Bureau data. Maywood has the third-lowest self-response rate in Proviso Township — behind only Melrose Park (49 percent) and Stone Park (43 percent).

Some factors that may contribute to those low self-response rates include the relatively high level of distrust in the government among the many Latinx residents in those suburbs and gaps in communicating the census to some residents. Phone banking presents an effective solution to addressing both of those issues, CSPL members said. 

Paulina Delgadillo, a CSPL member, said that phone banking can help build trust between volunteers and the residents they’re trying to get counted.

“Calling people in their own language is a more personable approach,” said Delgadillo.

Ocampo and Hernandez-Franco added that the trust is sometimes built over a series of persistent encounters.

“We are calling them one time and if they don’t answer, we leave a voicemail,” Ocampo said. “We also send a text message that includes a link to the census form. In the text, we also offer them assistance if they need help filling it out and how they can reach out to us.”

Ocampo said that she’s encountered “a lot of people living in multiunit apartments” who have not received census forms, which could present another challenge — but not one that phone banking can’t potentially resolve.

The Soul Drummers and audience members perform an impromptu dance on stage during the March 8 event. | Shanel Romain 

“There was a man I remember who sounded very old,” said Ansima Rosette Mamboleo, another CSPL volunteer. “I told him that I was calling about the census and he said he didn’t receive anything in the mail. I told him, you don’t have to wait for anything to come in the mail. You can go online and fill it out. I gave him the website and reminded him. I checked up on him.”

The roughly 25 volunteers who have participated in CSPL’s phone banking effort have also been able to help residents cope with the current COVID-19 crisis by telling them about available resources, such as food banks that are currently operating.

“Due to the challenge with the coronavirus, we know that residents are more challenged and deprived,” said Mamboleo.

“We’re doing reminders, educating people and checking on people in our area just to see how they’re doing. Do they have food, water, anything. At the same time, we’re referring them to food pantries, as well,” said Ocampo.

Patrick Custardo, who works as a community ambassador with the Community and Economic Development Association of Cook County, Inc. (CEDA) — one of the county’s largest community action agencies — said that, if anything, the COVID-19 pandemic has underscored just how important it is for as many residents as possible to complete the census.

Custardo said that CEDA relies on census funding for their vast array of social service programs, including food, housing and home energy assistance programs for low-income families. 

“Working with CSPL is important to us,” Custardo said. “When COVID hit, [our field workers] were taken out of the street like everyone else and so working in conjunction with the coalition is a very good thing.”

If you haven’t already responded to the 2020 Census, you can do so by visiting: my2020census.gov/

Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled Rose Ocampo’s last name. This article has since been updated. VFP regrets the error. 

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