Yet people have been evicted from their homes for giving honest census answers in the past. According to the General Accounting Office, one of the most frequent ways city governments use census information is to “detect illegal two-family dwellings,” and an American Planning Association survey found that housing-code enforcement was a key benefit of census data for local governments. Census data provide printouts of the average number of people per room in each block. As Arthur Young, former Census Bureau housing director, observes, local governments use census data to “develop a plan to ... put greater emphasis on those areas that ... need inspection or code enforcement.” The census data “send inspectors to places where they are more apt to find violations,” according to Young.

The census information provides red flags for housing enforcement inspectors to target. If more people are living in a residence than the building is zoned for, then the city housing office can do a sweep of the block to find the violators. The census might be termed the Mexican, Negro, and Asian-Immigrant Easy Eviction Survey. Obviously, the people most likely to live in overcrowded situations are poor people, especially immigrants who tend to cluster in the same neighborhood. Housing codes have long been used as a means to “keep out undesirables.” If poor people could afford to live in less crowded housing, they very likely would have already voluntarily moved somewhere else to other locales long ago.

Other census data could also be used to respondents’ detriment. GAO found that housing value data are often “used to evaluate decisions of eminent domain.” Since city planners usually prefer to commandeer poor people’s property, since they have lower values than rich people’s homes, the census increases the likelihood of expropriation of poor people’s homes by the local government.

When asked about such uses of census data, Schneider replied, “You balance the need for small area data with the possibility that it could possibly be used for purposes for which it was not intended.” Such housing crackdowns sometimes appear little more than a pretext to evict blacks, Hispanics, or other low-income people.

The information the census gathers will help fuel new government interventions. A Census Bureau press release noted, “Race data are required ... to assess racial disparities in health and environmental risks.” This is part of the Clinton administration’s “environmental justice” campaign — an effort to portray routine business decisions as part of a racist conspiracy. These policies have helped discourage new factories from locating in areas of high unemployment.

Most Americans received a short form — but one in six received a long form consisting of enough questions to alarm even a loyal Democrat. For instance, recipients are ordered to report to the Census Bureau what their annual income was last year. If there is any difference between what the person recalls on his census form and what he reports on his Form 1040, he can be hit with a $500 fine.

The census form asks whether any resident in the house has “a condition that substantially limits one or more basic physical activities such as walking, climbing stairs, reaching, lifting, or carrying.” What is the average American supposed to make of that question? Does it mean if a person cannot bench-press more than 200 pounds he can state that he is substantially limited from lifting? It doesn’t matter that different people will use completely different standards to answer the question. But politicians will take the raw heaped- together responses and announce that the resulting numbers prove that the United States needs the Americans with Disabilities Act more than ever.

The long form asks people whether their home contains “complete plumbing facilities.” Unfortunately, there is not a special box to check whether the home is cursed with a new federally mandated ultra-low-flush toilet — a concoction that is doing wonders for the sale of Lysol.
 

Welfare for your community