The U.S. Census Bureau is back to delivering forms to Alaskan households without a physical address. The process begins Wednesday, May 6. The hand delivery of census material originally began March 15, but was discontinued in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic three days later.
The Census Bureau says that the teams delivering the materials have been trained to observe social distancing, and will be following federal health and safety guidelines.
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The Census Bureau’s temporary field staff will be using government-provided protective equipment as they hand-deliver the census material to households. The Census expects its field operation to deliver materials to 110,000 households in Alaska.
Information from this count is used in a variety of ways, including as a basis for calculating the funding for various federal and state programs important to rural Alaska.
Anna Rose MacArthur is a reporter at KYUK in Bethel.