Wednesday September 16, 2020: South Sacramento, South of Mack Road
Still unfamiliar with this neighborhood. Returned to the apartment complex I had trouble with yesterday, and managed to get in. Missed most of the people, but interviewed one person not for the apartment but for his big family in Concord. Also received information from the leasing office that one apartment was vacant on April 1st.
Also visited the apartment complex across the street again.
Interviewed a 28-year-old woman with seven kids. She was in her bathrobe and trying hard to escape the interview in order to take a shower. Didn't want to enter her kids names. Thinking there might have confusion about kids ages and sexes that she refused to wait to check off on.
Visited a house with 8 people, all room renters. Two married couples. All Filipinos and quite old - ages 57 through 85 - and all working in low-pay home nursing care. I interviewed the youngest fellow, and finished the interview, when one of the other workers arrived. She made four important corrections to the data, almost too late to get the data recorded. My interviewee really didn't know the other people in his house very well. Instructive!
Tuesday September 15, 2020: South Sacramento, South of Mack Road
Totally unfamiliar with this neighborhood. Highest Covid rates in the city. We're down with the difficult cases now.
Had trouble getting into an apartment complex. Interviewed just one person there. Visited the apartment complex across the street.
Visited a number of houses in various states of disorganization. A lot of no answers, even though I could tell many of the people were actually at home.
Talked to one fellow on Ring. I could tell from notes that many enumerators had been here before. I identified myself. He laughed and said "I hate you guys!" He then promised to answer the census.
Talked to one woman with heavily-accented English. Perhaps African. Apparently not the woman of the house. Help perhaps, or a relative?
Monday September 14, 2020: Student Apartments Just South of Sacramento State University
I was reluctant to tackle these apartments for several reasons. There seemed to be initial confusion regarding whether these were dormitories (which would be group quarters). Apparently not. There would be many, many in-movers, which means no one knows what was going on in April, except management, who isn't talking. Plus, there was so many of them. Nevertheless, it wasn't all that bad.
I met a fellow named Matthew, who is also a census employee, focusing on the Elk Grove area. Matthew said, "I'm glad to see a census enumerator here, but would think it would really suck, because of all the in-movers." I replied, "It's not that bad. There are a lot of people here from the Bay Area. People are taking advantage of me being here to get their Bay Area families covered by the Census."
Sunday September 13, 2020: Gingerly Start Working on the "Case Push" List
Didn't do much work. The "Case Push" list is full of hard cases. Just one interview. Most interesting contact was a woman who refused a census interview. I think she viewed her refusal as a political protest. "People around here didn't get their unemployment extended. No way am I doing the census."
Saturday September 12, 2020: No Work!
Still no work.
Friday September 11, 2020: Confusion
I prepared to work, but missed the memo that no work was required. I approached just one house, then went home.
Thursday September 10, 2020: No Work!
For the first time, no work was required, so I worked on air quality stuff instead.
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