St. Mary’s County holds Census Solutions workshop to plan 2020 outreach for hard-to-count groups

St. Mary's County staff and a partnership specialist from the U.S. Census Bureau convened a Census Solutions workshop (date not specified) to draft outreach plans targeted at groups the county expects will be undercounted in the 2020 Census.

The workshop, led by Lee Ouseberry, Partnership Specialist, U.S. Census Bureau, and Bill Hunt, Director of Land Use and Growth Management for St. Mary's County, focused on identifying challenge statements and practical outreach ideas for renters, children under 5, people at or near poverty, people experiencing homelessness, and children in foster care.

County staff and workshop participants said the exercise aimed to convert brainstorming into actionable items for five county subcommittees. "Our number 1 objective is to build connections," Ouseberry said, adding that the workshop’s goals included developing actionable items and building momentum so other jurisdictions could replicate successful approaches. Bill Hunt said materials and subcommittee rosters would be shared through BoardDocs, the county's meeting-management web tool.

Participants divided into small groups to define challenge statements and propose solutions. The groups reported back with these priorities and example ideas:

- Children under 5: Groups noted children not in daycare or school, children in foster care, homeless children and children of undocumented families are difficult to locate. Their primary idea was to partner with the Department of Social Services and health-care providers to reach caregivers and transient populations.

- People at or near poverty: Participants said awareness and competing daily priorities were barriers. One proposed solution was outreach through JobSource’s mobile vehicle to hold block-by-block information sessions and provide internet-enabled terminals for on-site form completion.

- Renters: The renters group recommended partnering with rental agencies, property managers and insurance companies to distribute information and reminders to households.

The workshop also discussed military housing. A Census staff explanation during the meeting noted that households on military bases may receive postcards that are returned; base housing is often counted through on-base operations and will be handled by the base and the local Area Census Office (ACO). The ACO for Southern Maryland confirmed enumerators would leave voicemail messages when hiring and contacting applicants.

Organizational and timing details were discussed so subcommittees could move from idea to implementation. Ouseberry and county staff urged early work ahead of the census schedule: postcards and outreach begin in March 2020; online response windows and follow-up operations continue through the summer, with Census data required to be delivered to the president by Dec. 31, 2020. Ouseberry encouraged subcommittees to schedule additional working sessions and offered a Census Solutions toolkit and follow-up visits to subcommittee meetings.

Bill Hunt asked attendees to check their assigned subcommittee in BoardDocs and to contact county staff if they wanted to be reassigned. Workshop leaders emphasized that this session was a starting point, not a finished plan: groups should flesh out one chosen idea per subcommittee, storyboard timelines, and identify which organizations will carry specific outreach tasks.

Next steps identified at the meeting included posting the workshop materials and subcommittee lists on BoardDocs, coordinating follow-up sessions for subcommittees with the Census partnership specialist, and incorporating the workshop ideas into the county’s Complete Count Committee work plans.

The county-provided data point included in the session: St. Mary's County reported a 2010 self-response rate of about 75 percent; presenters said increasing that rate in 2020 is a primary objective.