Duggan says Detroit wants 'fair' chance to correct census undercount

Lawmakers, policy experts and leaders convened Monday in Detroit to discuss the 2020 Census and Detroit's pending challenge to the federal tally that officials maintain "missed tens of thousands of houses."

In Detroit, police, fire and other services have been cut by nearly ten million each year, following the 2020 Census, said Mayor Mike Duggan, one of several witnesses that spoke at the hearing held at Wayne County Community College District in Detroit.

"The census is only conducted every 10 years, but I think we can all agree that it impacts people's lives each and every year," said U.S. Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, during the hearing to discuss the local impacts of the 2020 Census.

The decennial census counted 639,111 Detroit residents in 2020 down 10.5% from 2010 — the seventh straight decade of population losses for Michigan's largest city.

Jeffrey Morenoff, professor of public policy and sociology at the University of Michigan testified that the census failed to count a substantial number of housing units in Detroit - over 75,000.

Also Morenoff co-authored a study with U-M's Poverty Solutions that examined ten Detroit block groups and found the number of occupied residential housing units were undercounted by 8%.

"That undercount hits the city of Detroit harder than any other community in America $10 million a year in state revenue sharing and much more in federal funds are being lost," Duggan said.

Incomplete counts can have a huge impact, leading to less political representation and fewer federal grants and other support. Detroit is one of dozens of communities nationwide to send a request for review to the Count Question Resolution Operation at the Census Bureau.

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In his testimony, Duggan blamed the undercount in Detroit on the federal government "engaging in systemic racism."

"The City of Detroit has been objectively under counted by 50,000 people," Duggan said at the hearing. "And all we want is a fair chance to appeal."

If the Census Bureau revises Detroit's population, it will not change data used for political representation, but could impact the future funding the city receives, according to the census website.

The grounds to challenge census results are narrow: boundary issues and housing counts, Morenoff said. The city can contest the existence of a housing structure but cannot challenge the occupancy of the structure.

The city's request was received by the Census Bureau in March and is currently under review.

"We're going to win one of these appeals, it's a matter of time," Duggan said after the hearing, "the facts are all on our side."

At the hearing Morenoff testified that privacy concerns alone should not keep the Census Bureau from being more forthcoming and sharing data with communities most impacted by the census results.

"Local governments including Detroit should be empowered to not only question but also challenge the accuracy of the housing and population counts in their jurisdictions, " he said. "But as of now the data needed to decisively show an undercount are hidden from these localities." 

Peters said he will continue to press the issue.

"There is an awful lot of data to show that there was a an undercount here in the city of Detroit, we've got to make it right," he said.

Hard to count populations

The Census Bureau's own post-census analysis of the 2020 Census showed some of the same groups of people being undercounted as the previous 2010 Census.

Black, Hispanic, American Indian or Alaska Natives who live on reservations and people who identify as some other race were undercounted in 2020. While Non-Hispanic white and Asian residents were overcounted.

Nationwide, renters were undercounted while homeowners were overcounted. And young children under five years of age were often underrepresented in population totals.

Detroit's population is 77% Black (non-Hispanic). Hispanics comprise 8% of residents and the white (non-Hispanic) population is 9.5%, according to 2020 Census results. 

A majority (52%) of housing units are renter-occupied in Detroit.

"There's a real human impact behind this undercount." Morenoff testified. "Millions of dollars that should have gone to programs providing affordable housing, nutrition assistance, early childhood education and more won't reach the people who need them."

In Michigan, communities like Detroit and Flint were less likely to respond in 2020 compared to 2010. Just over half (51%) of residents responded to the 2020 Census compared to a self response rate of 54% and 62% for Detroit and Flint, respectively in 2010.

Statewide, Michigan fared better with a response rate of 71% higher than the U.S. at 67% and up from 2010 when the state's response rate was 68%.

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Hurdles to a complete count

The 2020 decennial faced a series of serious setbacks, including pandemic-related delays and former President Donald Trump's decision to end field operations early.

In the months prior to the undertaking a failed attempt to include the question of citizenship in the official census, was followed by an executive order from the Trump Administration to create a list of noncitizens in the U.S. and a presidential memorandum ordering the Census Bureau to use the list in order to exclude noncitizens from the allocation of House seats. The efforts to exclude noncitizens from apportionment counts were not successful.

But the distrust and fear surrounding the count prevailed in some Michigan communities, according to Maha Freij, President and Chief Executive Officer, of the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services— a nonprofit based in Dearborn.

"The biggest challenge was the fear and mistrust that developed in the community because of the politicization of the operations of the census." Freij said.

The pandemic, language barriers and access to the internet were examples of additional challenges that local communities faced during the 2020 Census, she said.

In Michigan 15% of households report that they were without internet access. In Detroit the rate was 28%, according to 2020 American Community Survey data.

Contact Kristi Tanner: ktanner@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter: @midatalove.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Duggan says Detroit wants 'fair' chance to correct census undercount