October 18, 2022 |
With income surveys critical for a grant application still needed from about 200 households in Rawlins, HUD and the WCDA have given the city two more weeks to collect the data.
The deadline originally was yesterday. Mira Miller, the city’s public information officer, said she is grateful for the extension.
Pictured above: Letters ready to be mailed to random survey participants. Photo courtesy City of Rawlins.
The two $1 million grants the city is seeking are targeted for communities where 51 percent of the households are at or below the federal guideline for low-to-moderate income. Only 49 percent of the households in Rawlins meet that threshold, according to the 2020 census. Because of social and economic changes since Joe Biden took office in 2021, including the layoffs at the refinery, the decline in the oil and gas industry, and people leaving the city, officials have argued that household incomes reflect the change. The WCDA sponsored survey of 452 households in Rawlins and Sinclair to collect income data.
City grant writer Andrea Hammond said it has been a struggle to convince residents to participate in the survey.
Hammond said about 200 more households which received the survey have not responded. The survey takes about one minute to complete. It does not ask for a specific salary figure, only an over/under for the number of family members living in the household.
Staff are manning phones until 7 p.m. each night this week in hopes that residents who were selected for the survey will call. Your name is not required. Each household that was selected was given a number, which you use to submit your data.
The phone number to submit your survey response is (307) 324-4501.
