Residents can help provide valuable information to help improve the future of Cochrane by participating in the 2024 Census that will take place in April.
Manager of legislative services for The Town of Cochrane, Brett Hawken, said that starting on April 2, Cochranites can expect to see door hangers delivered to their homes with unique QR codes that they can scan to fill out their census.
If no online response is received by April 15, enumerators will visit those residents for door-to-door data collection.
“Residents without access to a device can visit either the RancheHouse or The Station, and the staff members are happy to assist them with their census,” Hawken said. “We’re going to set up some iPads at both those locations for people to fill out, and we will also provide a census hotline where people can call in to provide their response, and that will be on the door hanger they receive.”
With the amount of growth Cochrane’s seeing, Hawken said getting a true and accurate count helps in several ways. Compared to a federal census that takes place once every four years, an annual municipal census helps provide accurate and clear numbers.
This data is used by the municipality to help secure more grant funding and also allows the Town to be more efficient and accurate when planning for social and infrastructure projects like school sites and transit routes.
Emergency services also benefit from the information as it allows first responders to know how many people are in an area and if there needs to be any sort of emergency plan for every community in Cochrane.
And overall, it helps the RancheHouse clean up their internal systems like accounting and geomatic information system. Through this the 911 service and all planning services from the Town more accurate.
“And it makes sure that we are hitting everybody, and not missing anybody,” Hawken said.
With the same system used by different municipalities, Hawke said the average response rate of the census is 98 per cent.
This year, Hawken said a special sweepstakes will also be launched as a fun way to motivate Cochranites to participate in this year’s census.
“We’re going to be running a sweepstakes for people to enter what they think is going to be the total amount of residents after the census is done and there will be a prize that comes out of it,” he said. “But if people want to do it without the sweepstakes, every piece of data that goes in helps make more accurate and efficient decisions for the future of Cochrane.”
If anyone is interested in being an enumerator for this year’s census, Hawken said he would love for them to submit their resume to [email protected] as they are currently hiring.
