With census, East Point hopes for magic number: 50,000

By April Hunt

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

East Point had been home to Ronald Porter and Elizabeth Robinson for just two months when the census form arrived in the mail.

The couple filled it out and mailed it back immediately. They felt invisible living on the streets and in shelters for a year and were eager to again be seen.

“Nobody knew about us,” said Porter, 43, who lost his job as a forklift operator and now earns half as much working in housekeeping for a laundry company. “But things have turned around for us. I want to be a part of everything.”

That attitude is music to the ears of East Point’s leaders. At last count in 2008, the city fell just 6,582 people short of becoming what’s known as an entitlement city.

To reach that 50,000 population threshold, it will have to count traditionally missed folks like Porter and Robinson, as well as those still on the streets, immigrants and the working poor without stable addresses.

It’s a multimillion-dollar proposition. If East Point succeeds, a chunk of the $14 billion that Georgia receives from federal agencies each year will go directly to the cash-strapped city, to help pay for crumbling streets and buildings.

Now, Fulton County handles that money and can take administrative and other fees off the top. Lopping off those fees would help shore up shaky finances in a city that began the fiscal year last June with a $2 million deficit -- though far smaller than the previous year's $6 million hole -- and had to borrow $8 million in January to pay down bond debt and run city operations.

And it goes beyond direct payments. Demographics from the census are key in grant applications for programs such as health services that, ironically, are needed most by the people least likely to be counted.

“We have homeless people who stay here, people who move each time the rent is due but stay in the city, immigrants who may not be here legally,” said Mayor Earnestine Pittman. “We have to beat the bushes to count every single one of them.”

Alpharetta and Smyrna, too, are flirting with 50,000.  They had 49,903 and 49,854, respectively, in the last count (2008) and are expected to easily reach the new threshold.

It will be a greater challenge for East Point. As of Wednesday, only 49 percent of residents with addresses in East Point had returned their forms to be counted.

That’s 16 percent lower than the return rate for the city in 2000 and also short of the 59 percent rate of return for Georgia this year.

One problem in getting everyone counted in East Point is the number of occasional homeless like Arthur McLean. The 63-year-old claims to have a home in East Point now but hasn't been counted in the census. Mail isn't sent to wherever he is staying.

"I went to a forum about how to fill it out, and they had nice food," McLean said, admitting he stays off and on somewhere in the city.

But a bigger worry is a distrust of government. Norman Jordan, a 48-year-old former warehouse worker who has worked odd jobs since being laid off last year, said he has heard all sorts of reasons why people are tossing the form in the trash.

Some friends complain that the government is prying for no reason. Others spread rumors that the form requires people to submit sensitive information like Social Security numbers. It doesn’t.

“These are people who see a guy working on a light pole and think the government is putting up cameras to spy on them,” Jordan said with a shake of his head. “I try to tell them the government just needs to know who’s out there so they know what kind of money to put here.”

East Point may well need more services, for instance, for non-English speakers. At least 900 people, mostly foreign-born, are crammed in a small trailer court near South Fulton Medical Center.

A quick check with residents revealed just one family -- of two adults and three children -- who admitted to filling out the form.

One man was able to show legal papers for him and seven others in his home, but he was still afraid to interact with the government.

Another woman, watching three small children, called her brother at work when asked about the census. There were at least three children and four adults sharing the ramshackle trailer that would not be counted, though they've lived there for two years since immigrating from Honduras.

“We don’t have papers,” the woman, who identified herself as Mariara, said in Spanish. “We can’t.”

In fact, Census Bureau officials have been trying to spread the word they don’t care about immigration status or much else.

People are counted simply if they are living and breathing in any given city on April 1, said Gerson Vasquez, a senior partnership specialist for the census in metro Atlanta.

That will be a message during an event known as March to the Mailbox on Saturday across the country. It is basically a neighborhood blitz, with volunteers in each city fanning out to hand out fliers and answer questions in a bid to get more responses.

East Point, though, does not have an event scheduled. Just this week, the City Council agreed to serve as a de facto task force that will develop a plan of attack to boost the population count. That work is expected to take about two weeks.

“Our challenge is to get the volunteers who will go talk to people on their street or under the bridges, to get them counted,” said Councilman Clyde Mitchell. “Every nickel, dime and penny matters. Every person matters.”

That may be the message to send. Robinson, 24, said one of her professors at Iverson Business School emphasized the importance of having a voice by being counted in the census.

And for Robinson, it goes beyond helping East Point. If the government knows of students like her, there may be more funds set aside for financial aid.

"It feels good to know you matter," Robinson said. "But it feels really good to know you can help somebody else out. It's good to be part of the community."

Staff writer Ralph Ellis contributed to this article.

East Point by the numbers

2000 population: 39,595

2008 population: 43,418