Pre-Census Programs
In order to distribute a questionnaire to all people in the United States, everyone's address must be first identified or verified and local government boundaries need to be reviewed and updated. These tasks make up the pre-census activities.
Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA) is designed to make sure that all residential housing units are identified and receive a mail-out census questionnaire. An appeals process takes place from October 2009 to January 2010 to allow jurisdictions the opportunity to review and update their addresses.
In the fall 2009, the Census Bureau contacts local governments requesting an update on new households built from March 2009 to April 2010 through their New Construction program in order to update their Master Address File used to send out the Decennial Census questionnaire.
Residents living within a facility, such as dormitories, prisons, nursing homes and other group living situations, will be counted within Group Quarters Enumeration since they do not have individual mailing addresses. These operations include an early validation of the bureau's list of group quarters, an advance visit to prepare GQ facilities for census day and finally enumeration of all group quarters.
The goal of the Boundary and Annexation Survey (BAS) is an update and certification survey to make sure all political jurisdiction boundaries are current as of January, 2010.
The Detroit Regional Census Center's Geography Division coordinates these activities for all areas within Ohio with support from Office of Policy Research and Strategic Planning in the Ohio Department of Development.
On April 1, 2010, Census Day, the U.S. Census Bureau needs to make sure that all the questionnaires mailed to households now get sent back or collected by an enumerator. A second wave of questionnaires will be sent out for the first time to remind residents and provide an extra form.
Once Census Day has passed, one of the most important post-census activities is to send out enumerators to go door-to-door and write out questionnaires for households that did not respond.
