A census workers who is more than willing to fudge the numbers
Cleveland.com [1] | Other Voices | February 01, 2010
I work at a community food pantry in Lorain County and wanted Plain Dealer readers to know of our bizarre census story:
A few weeks ago, our pantry received a call from a Census Bureau worker who requested copies of our monthly statistics for "census records." Our free meal service has never applied to census data, and we declined to provide the records.
When he insisted, I repeatedly explained that our pantry is not a shelter and that no one lives there. But it didn't matter.
The census worker said the official count starts in the spring, and he wanted to visit our food pantry and "quiz" people because he felt that the "impoverished" were embarrassed to admit who lives at their home (on census forms they received by mail) and he wanted to follow up at our pantry.
I noted that many people go from pantry to pantry and might be counted many times that way.
He said, "That's OK; the more people, the more money for Ohio."
I hope this is not indicative of how the census will be conducted this year.
Mary Clark, Columbia Station
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