The Census impacts you!

Federal funding levels for health programs critical to some of our most vulnerable communities are determined using Census population data. Some of these programs and their impacts in McLennan County are:

• CHIP: 3,403 insured (2018)
• Medicare: 44,300 enrolled (November 2019)
• WIC: 2,861 women and children under four served (2015)

Hospitals also utilize census data to perform needs assessments, plan new locations and understand their service populations better to provide quality care.

Census data plays an important role in keeping our communities safe. Local governments use census data to decide where to:

• Build new police and fire stations
• Determine how best to design programs and allocate resources
• Aid in emergency preparedness

Education funding allocated by census counts includes funding for:

• Waco's 11 Head Start centers, which provide early childhood education opportunities for 1,000 families and their young children in McLennan and Falls counties 
• The National School Lunch Program, which provided 29,408 meals for public students in McLennan County during the 2013-14 school year
• Bilingual education programs
• Grants for Title I schools
• Special education support funding for public schools
• Student financial aid

Understanding how the Census is tied to education in our area is important to providing a bright future for the youngest generation of City and County residents.

Accurate data helps business owners find new customers, analyze locations and select new sites and target their markets more effectively. 

Banks can also determine the potential success of a particular new service by looking at the demographics of an area. That means more tailored financial assistance to potential and existing business owners. 

Support for transportation is important for our region, which according to Census population data, is growing by about 1.7 percent annually . Statewide transportation funding from federal transportation programs is projected to total $11.3 billion dollars over the next two years. Funding allocated through these programs goes towards highway and road construction, as well as local and state-wide transit systems.

A complete count will help influence funding decisions on these transportation improvements to keep pace with our City and County’s rapid population growth.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Community Development Block Grants are tied to census data. These annual grants also provide billions in discretionary funding that local governments can choose to use to improve their infrastructure.

HUD funding to McLennan County totals:

• $3,800,000 in Lead Hazard Control & Healthy Homes Funding;
• $2,225,894 in Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program Grant funding, which is used across six counties;   
• $1,302,073 from the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG);
• $975,367 in Continuum of Care Funding; and
• $628,043 from the HOME program.  

The census affects your representation in Congress. Every ten years, the state population counts provided by the census are used to update the number of seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives. This is known as Congressional reapportionment.

With a complete count, Texas is projected to gain 3 seats

Achieving an accurate population count in Texas is crucial to ensuring that the needs of all Texans-- including residents of Waco and McLennan County—are represented in Congress.