Census Day Held In Indianapolis

Census day is the day that people are asked to respond to the Census Bureau based on where they live on April 1.  The effort to count everyone in Indianapolis in Count Me Indy.

Plans for census efforts on this day originally involved large events at Indianapolis libraries to help people finish their forms.  The current pandemic changed this outreach focus.

This is the first year everyone is invited to fill it out online, people may also call or fill out the form by mail.

Count Me Indy Manager Callie Kennington says there have been other barriers to census efforts this year.

"A lot of people don’t know that everyone counts, regardless of immigration status, so if you are living here on April 1," says Kennington, "then you count in Indianapolis and Marion County."

Kennington says there is a lot of misinformation about the census.

"So people, they might not know what the census is, or why it’s important to participate for their community, they might not know that individual census responses are confidential for 72 years," says Kennington. 

For every person counted in Marion County, the county and municipalities could receive up to $30,000 in funding for public programs, over the next decade.

So far more than 35 percent of residents here have responded. People have until the end of August to fill out the census.