
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, April 16, 1990                   TAG: 9004160296
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

NORTHERN VIRGINIA AREAS GET LEFT OUT IN CENSUS MAILINGS

Residents of new areas in fast-growing Northern Virginia are still waiting for Census Bureau forms because their neighborhoods did not make it onto mailing lists.

"I called their hot line two or three times, and they kept telling me there wasn't a problem, but they never took down my address," said Scott Nabor, who lives in a year-old town house in the Kingstowne development in southeastern Fairfax. "Apparently a lot of people out here aren't listed."

Officials blamed the problem on the absence of some new neighborhoods from mailing lists purchased by the Census Bureau from direct-mail advertisers.

Census officials said thousands of Washington, D.C.-area residents have not received the forms distributed to most Americans last month. And some received too many.

Arthur E. Rives, the bureau's district office manager in Arlington, said nearly 572 Vienna households got their forms late because the bureau's listings had an incorrect zip code. A similar mistake sent three forms each to hundreds of apartments in Crystal City.

"It seemed like an epidemic" of census forms, Crystal Plaza resident Constance Minkin said.

Dozens of bureau employees have begun to hand-deliver forms to residents of new developments in Virginia and suburban Maryland, Census officials said Friday.

Census officials said they were distributing forms Saturday and Sunday to give households enough time to return the forms by early May. That's when the bureau will begin using temporary workers to go door-to-door in an effort to count the uncounted.

The difficulty in locating some residents, particularly those in newer developments, is one of many kinks in the bureau's effort to count the nation's populace. Fewer than 60 percent of the nearly 100 million U.S. households that were mailed questionnaires have returned them, well short of the bureau's goal of 70 percent.

The Census Bureau's $2.6 billion budget is based on a voluntary compliance rate of 70 percent. Officials say the cost will rise by $10 million for every percentage point below that.

"There's a big rush," said Gayle Fitzpatrick, district office manager for the bureau's Alexandria office. Fitzpatrick said today was the cutoff.

She said the office is diverting employees from other bureau jobs to deliver forms. They hoped to deliver about 4,000 forms Saturday and Sunday in Alexandria and Loudoun, Prince William and eastern Fairfax counties.

by CNB