Oxford has the highest return rate in the lower Naugatuck Valley for the 2010 Census forms so far.
About 80 percent of the people living in Oxford have mailed their 10-question forms to the U.S. Census Bureau, according to statistics from the bureau.
Ansonia has the lowest return rates, so far, with only 68 percent of the forms returned to the Census Bureau.
Derby has a return rate of 70 percent. In Seymour it’s 76 percent and in Shelton it’s 78 percent.
The national average for forms mailed in is 72 percent.
Click here to view an interactive map of return rates across the country.
Now Census workers are visiting homes in person, trying to get as many people to respond as possible.
The effort will last until July 10.
“America’s had a very successful first half of the 2010 Census, where more than 72 percent of the nation’s households mailed back their census forms,” U.S. Census Bureau Director Robert M. Groves said in a written statement. ​“But achieving a complete and accurate census requires us to now go door to door to count all the remaining households we’ve not heard back from.”
In most cases, census workers will make up to six attempts at each housing unit address to count possible residents. This includes leaving notifications of the attempted visit at the house or apartment door, in addition to trying to reach the household by phone to conduct the interview or schedule an in-person interview, the statement says.
“If a census taker knocks on your door, please help by providing the basic information required for the census,” Groves said in the statement. ​“Your answers are strictly confidential. There are just 10 questions on the form and it should only take about 10 minutes to complete.”
After exhausting their efforts to do an in-person interview with a resident of an occupied housing unit, they will seek out proxy sources — a neighbor, a rental agent, a building manager or some other knowledgeable person familiar with the housing unit — to obtain as much basic information about the occupants as they can, the statement said.
The Census Bureau is urging cooperation and patience with the census takers, as this is the best way to ensure that everyone is counted properly.