MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WKRN) — The City of Murfreesboro sent firefighters door-to-door to help update its population count. However, those numbers will have to be used next year because the city didn’t have enough participation to complete this year’s special census.
Since the 2020 census, city leaders believe the area has grown in population by at least 20,000. For each person living in Murfreesboro, the city is entitled to $175 in federal funding each year.
“The special census has gone well, but a little slow. We’re afraid that maybe the message isn’t getting out about how important the special census is,” said Malia Grubbs, project coordinator for the City of Murfreesboro. “[In] 2020, in the federal census, [we were] at 152,000 roughly. We think that we’ve grown by at least 20,000, so that could mean close to $3.5 million per year extra that we don’t get now.”
Although the city has missed the deadline for getting those extra dollars this year, they still hope to be able to obtain the additional funding next year. For the next several months, city firefighters will be going door-to-door, hoping to account for the roughly 100,000 people who still haven’t participated.
“When I first moved here back in the ’90s, I thought Murfreesboro was great for families. They have so much to offer here. The parks are fantastic, but we’ve grown so much that we need more of that,” Grubbs said. “In order to get those kinds of things, we need the money for that. So this money will help us to keep up with the growth of it and offer more things for the people in our town.”
If firefighters show up at your door, city leaders ask that you answer and complete the census questions, which should take less than two minutes.
“We’re really getting some rolling in now, we’re getting a lot of mailers back in the door to door’s happened tremendously,” Grubbs said. “So, our goal is just to keep going until maybe the end of May, and hopefully we’ll have our numbers by then.”
You can also participate by visiting this link.
