A lot of people who live in the south suburbs are considered “hard to count” in the official U.S. Census every 10 years.

“My district was one of the hard-to-count districts” during the last census, Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Matteson, told an audience Monday night in Chicago’s Pullman neighborhood.

One in four Cook County residents did not initially respond to the 2010 census, she said.

“Cook County had the highest nonresponse rate (in Illinois) at 25%,” Kelly said. “African Americans historically have been hardest to count, and today’s current atmosphere of distrust isn’t helping.”

Children age 5 and younger, lower-income residents, renters, senior citizens, immigrants and people who are homeless also rank among the more difficult to enumerate, officials said.

When residents are not counted, state and local agencies miss out on federal funding for transportation, education, healthcare and other essential services, officials said.

“We will lose $1,800 per person (each year) for 10 years for whoever does not fill out the census,” Kelly said.

Kelly gathered with other elected representatives and Census Bureau agents at the Blue Door Neighborhood Center to ask a group of about 50 community leaders, civic group members and others to help get the word out about the importance of participating in the census.

Residents who do not participate in the census are essentially giving their tax dollars to people in other states, Cook County Commissioner Deborah Sims, D-Chicago, said.

“If you’re not counted your money is going somewhere else,” Sims said.

Cook County has allocated $2 million on census outreach, in addition to the $33 million appropriated by state lawmakers, Commissioner Stanley Moore, D-Chicago, said.

“It’s a complete education campaign, from the top of the state to the bottom,” Moore said.

Cook County was home to 5.2 million of the state’s 12.7 million residents in 2017, according to the Census Bureau. The state’s population has declined in recent years. In addition to determining how federal funding is allocated, the census also determines how the 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are apportioned, based on population.

Illinois expects to lose one and possibly two of its 18 Congressional seats after the 2020 Census, officials said. Illinois had as many as 27 seats in Congress from 1913 to 1943.

“Since 1950 Illinois has lost one Congressional seat in every census cycle,” said Anita Banerji, director of Census 2020 outreach for Forefront, a statewide advocacy group.

For the first time, residents in 2020 may complete the census questionnaire online, said Marilyn Sanders, a Census Bureau regional director who oversees the head count in Illinois and seven other states.

Thousands of census workers will begin knocking on doors in August to verify addresses before surveys are distributed in April, Sanders said.

“We are hopeful everyone will fill out the census forms online, by phone or mail,” Sanders said.

Many homes have no internet access, she said. Rural residents, senior citizens and lower-income residents without online service are at greater risk of not being counted, she said.

By May, census workers will begin the task of following up with residents who did not respond to the initial census survey, she said. That will mean more knocking on doors, visiting retirement communities and apartment complexes and seeking out others who did not answer the census questions, she said.

“We are committed to making certain we give every person the ability to respond to the census” by Dec. 31, 2020, Sanders said.

There is particular concern about non-citizens not being counted in the 2020 census, Kelly said. She criticized continued efforts by the administration of President Donald Trump to add a citizenship question to the census despite a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the administration did not provide sufficient reasons for doing so.

“The census is intended to count all residents, not just U.S. citizens. The Constitution is quite clear on that point,” Kelly said.

After administration officials said they would begin printing census forms without the citizenship question, attorneys for the Trump administration told a judge that they would seek a new rationale to include the question.

“The recent Supreme Court ruling was right, just and constitutional,” Kelly said. “Since then, the administration has switched course twice on whether (Trump) will continue the fight to put the question on the (census). It sounds like he will continue the fight.”

A district profile on Kelly’s website said her 2nd District represents 718,507 residents. The site links to a Census Bureau American Community Survey page that estimated 25,545 — or about 3.5% — of the district’s residents were noncitizens in 2010.

The survey said 16,733 of the district’s 42,278 foreign-born residents had become naturalized U.S. citizens. More than two-thirds — or 30,920 — of the district’s foreign-born residents were from Latin America, the survey said.

Most of the district’s residents cited European ancestry, according to the survey. The largest ancestral populations were German (30,988), Irish (24,838), Polish (21,973), Italian (15,309) and sub-Saharan African (11,349), according to the survey.

Kelly’s district extends from Chicago’s South Side and through the south suburbs along the Indiana border into Kankakee County and other areas.

“My district is urban, suburban and rural,” Kelly said.

Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller, D-Lynwood, said a complete and accurate census count was critical for securing federal dollars for public transportation and other programs.

“We have to make sure we have enough (public) transportation to get from 95th Street to University Park,” Miller said.

Organizers of Monday’s community meeting said Kelly will host a similar event Aug. 5 in Country Club Hills and a third meeting in Kankakee County at a date to be determined.