Cda Tribe Working On Reservation Census Computerized Information Will Be Helpful When Tribe Tries For Grants
As Census 2000 winds down, there’s a push on the Coeur d’Alene Reservation to finish a separate survey of Native Americans there.
The federal government’s census takes in everyone on the reservation, Indian and non-Indian alike. But the Coeur d’Alene tribal government wanted to get more detailed and different information about its people, Robert Spaulding of the tribe’s grant office said Monday.
The survey began last fall, he said. Staff members started with the list of enrolled members, which now numbers 1,726, and have tried to contact everyone. Members of other tribes who live on the reservation are also counted.
The information will help with obtaining grants, he said. For example, an application for money to help senior citizens might ask, “How many native people do you have on the reservation who are 60 years or older?”
The three-page survey includes information geared toward tribal planning, he said. “What’s the population going to look like in one, five or 10 years from now?”
Planning for employment is a special area of interest. “We ask, `What job position do you have now? What have you done most of your life? What would you like to do for a living? What other skills do you have?”’
The information is being compiled by Tribal Data Resources Inc., a California company with 15 years experience. Once the data is computerized, it can be used to create specific reports as the tribe needs them.
Spaulding is the tribe’s liaison with the U.S. Census Bureau, which is especially eager to get a full count of Native Americans. It hired people to go house-to-house on the reservation instead of mailing census forms. In the next few weeks, census workers will be revisiting homes where no one could be found before, Spaulding said.
He urged Native Americans who had not filled out a tribal survey or census form to phone 686-6309 in Plummer. The toll-free long-distance phone number is (800) 829-2202. The quickest way to reach the Census Bureau is to call collect to the Lewiston office, 0-208-743-3675.