Traffic snarls, crowded beaches and jammed restaurants are common in Orange Beach and Gulf Shores every summer.
But how many of those people who flock to the beaches actually live in South Baldwin County? A glimpse of 2020 U.S. Census participation rates illustrate that it will be hard to tally an accurate assessment of how many permanent residents are living close to Alabama beaches versus those who own rental properties and live elsewhere.
Alabama’s three largest coastal cities -- Orange Beach (18.3%), Gulf Shores (35.9%) and Dauphin Island (27.7%) have glaringly low Census participation response rates compared to the state’s average of 60.7%. Coastal participation rates are also far lower than neighboring Baldwin County cities like Foley (68%), Fairhope (75%) and Robertsdale (67%).
But coastal Alabama’s participation rates are on par with popular tourist destinations along the Florida Panhandle where Panama City Beach (26.7%) and Destin (31%) also are lagging behind state and county averages. Alabama’s popular tourist towns are also in line with cities where the main industry is dominated by tourism such as Gatlinburg, Tennessee where the participation rate is 18.5% versus the state’s average of 62.4%; or Branson, Missouri, where the participation rate is 39.5% compared to that state’s average of 63.2%.
Marilyn Stephens, an assistant regional Census manager, said the main reason for low response rates in beach towns is likely due to the proliferation of rental properties. For instance, if someone living in another city but who owns a rental property along the Gulf Coast will need to fill out two Census forms – one for their permanent residence, and another for their rental property. On the form for their rental property, the owner would have to report that no one was living there on April 1, and that it was a rental property, Stephens said.
She said the low response rate means that the owners of the properties have not participated in the Census yet.
An accurate Census count is viewed as crucial among state and city leaders. Billions of dollars in federal assistance to states is determined each year through the Census count, and cities benefit based on population totals and demographic details. Funding for Medicare and Medicaid are based on census estimates, as are programs dealing with highway construction, child nutrition, college tuition assistance, public housing, wildlife restoration and job development.
‘Artificially low’
Crowds gather at a beach in Alabama over Memorial Day weekend 2020. The beaches are Alabama's top tourism draw, and the cities of Orange Beach and Gulf Shores are filled with vacation rental units that are, according to city officials, skewing Census participation rates for the two cities.
Gulf Shores and Orange Beach city officials believe the U.S. Census Bureau’s self-response rates understate due to how those housing units are counted, and they argue that the Census Bureau should make changes that would allow their communities a more accurate count.
“Census response rates for tourist destinations are going to be artificially low,” said Lee Jones, director of planning and community development with the city of Gulf Shores.
Said Marc Anderson, special projects coordinator with the city of Orange Beach and a member of the city’s Complete Count Committee, “We are aware that the U.S. Census self-response rate is vastly understated in Orange Beach, as well as other beach destinations, due to all housing in the city being counted from single-family homes to condominium units.”
For Orange Beach, the city has more than 8,500 condo rental units, which Anderson said is “more than our full-time population.” According to a 2019 Census estimate, Orange Beach’s population is 6,235 people and represented a 14.6% growth rate since the 2010 Census count.
“The Census is aware of the issue as well as we’re hopeful it will be addressed in future counts,” said Anderson.
Jones said the cities provide a document to the Census Bureau called a “Local Update of Census Addresses” or LUCA. The documents, he said, includes an address for every unit within the city limits.
“Our response rate is measured against the city’s total number of units,” said Jones. “The majority of units within our city limits are not occupied by full-time residents, therefore, responses to the Census are not being received from these units. Given their response rate, my guess is that the City of Orange Beach has an even higher percentage than we do of units that they are not occupied by full-time residents.”
Jones said a more accurate measure of a city’s response rate would be to calculate the number of responses against the number of units occupied by “actual residents.”
“Until that comparison is made, the response rate from destinations like ours will appear to be low, when in actuality, they are not,” he said.
Outreach
Still, Gulf Shores and Orange Beach are both lagging behind their participation levels from 10 years ago. Orange Beach, in 2010, had a Census participation rate of 48.7% while Gulf Shores was at 46.2%.
Alabama is trailing the national Census participation rate by less than 3 percentage points and Gov. Kay Ivey is urging people to fill out their Census forms and not “to put it off any longer.” She has long implored residents to fill out their Census forms, noting that billions of dollars in federal money allocations are determined by the Census count, as well as the number of members representing Alabama in Congress. The state, as projected, could lose a congressional seat ahead of the 2022 elections.
“We are continuing to try to increase participation in the Census,” said Jones. Plans include setting up tables at local election sites to provide opportunities for residents who have not responded to complete the Census survey online. City elections are scheduled for August 25.
The city is also sending out another round of postcards encouraging residents to respond.
In Dauphin Island – which is Alabama’s only barrier island and a popular beach destination in Mobile County – Mayor Jeff Collier said he feels as if the city has done its due diligence to get residents to respond: Posters, mailers and email updates all include recommendations as to why filling out the Census is important.
“We’ve done all of that and probably more than what the state recommends we do for outreach,” said Collier. “We haven’t gone out knocking on doors, but I feel comfortable we’ve done enough normal outreach we are to do as a community.”
In Orange Beach, Anderson said that city staff is pushing the “Orange Beach Counts” message, among others, through events and social media and other marketing efforts. The city established its Complete Count committee in partnership with an Atlanta-based Census partnership specialist.
“While our response rate is much higher than the Census map shows, we can always do better,” said Anderson. “It is critical that everyone fill out their Census for federal purposes and state representation in Congress, of which Alabama has one – possibly two – seats at stake.”
Rushed operations
Indeed, Alabama is on the cusp of potentially losing one of its seven congressional seats for the first time since 1970, thanks largely to a sluggish population growth since 2010 compared to other states in the Southeast and Southwest. Census experts believe it would take a historic undercount for Alabama to be at risk of losing two seats.
Efforts to boost Census participation is likely to be expedited in the coming weeks after the Census Bureau said Monday it would finish collecting its field data by Sept. 30, in advance of preparing final data collection and apportionment counts by Dec. 31. The agency, which is part of the Commerce Department, essentially signaled it was ending its in-person canvass of the nation’s population one-month earlier than expected.
While federal law requires Census data to be turned in by Dec. 31, the Census Bureau pushed in April for an extension of its deadlines through April 2021, due to difficulties of undergoing a nationwide count during the coronavirus pandemic.
Terri Ann Lowenthal, a Census consultant who once worked as a staff director of a House oversight subcommittee on the Census, said participation data in beach communities illustrates why more time is needed for the Census Bureau to complete its work. More than 37% of households in the U.S. have not responded to the census; 40% in Alabama.
“This is why the Census Bureau needs time to figure out why so many households haven’t responded and then to make sure those residents are counted where they are supposed to be counted,” said Lowenthal. “If the Bureau is rushing through these remaining operations, the accuracy of what you are doing and the quality of and accuracy of what the Bureau is doing will suffer.”
Gerald Webster, a professor of political geography at the University of Wyoming and a former geography professor at the University of Alabama, said with more “sufficient time” every non-reporting house or condo would be visited by a census field worker.
“While one might expect beach communities to have somewhat lower response rates than other locations, but (the low participation levels) underscores why more time would be quite valuable to have a complete and accurate count,” he said.
Ramsey Archibald contributed to this report.
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