Detroit Mayor Duggan Pushes For 2020 Census Appeal

(CBS Detroit) - Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is looking for more.

He believes there are at least 50,000 people missing from the 2020 Census and that means big dollars lost for the city.

At a field hearing, Monday Duggan argued the Census count ended too soon.

"In May they said we are going to put resources in 12 states to start a week early," Duggan said.

"And then when they announced where the extra week was in the state of Michigan, it was in Oakland County. Now at the time Oakland County had a 77% response rate when Detroit had a 49% response rate."

And that means vital services are in jeopardy.

"We've been cut already, $10 million a year nearly in state revenue sharing for police, fire, and other services and virtually every aspect of federal funding from housing, to hot lunch, to Medicaid funding," Duggan explained.

Duggan also testified that the count was inadequately staffed and supervised.

"DTE has 280,000 housing units that are paying their light and gas bill and the Census Bureau says we have fewer than 255,000 households and so who's occupying these other 25,000 households paying the gas and light bills," Duggan said.

Results of the Census are used to calculate the number of House memberships for each state.

The hearing is the first step for what could be a long process.

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