When the U.S. Census Bureau wraps up its special mid-decade count of Ames next week, the city will be holding its breath for the results.

It’s the last chance in the 1990s for Ames officials to prove the population has reached the 50,000-people mark, important for federal funding guidelines.

Bob Kindred, assistant city manager overseeing the special census project, said if all goes well, Iowa State students who live off campus will see an increase in affordable housing available in the next few years because of the influx of federal dollars.

“If the city should break the 50,000-population mark, we could receive several hundred thousand dollars each year in community development to help low- to moderate-income residents, which includes a lot of students,” he said.

The City Council has made affordable housing a priority, but it’s a long costly road to make it feasible, he said.

“That extra money over a few years can make a real difference in helping all residents in Ames, not just students — although students are a large part of it,” Kindred said.

Preliminary findings will be released in the next couple of weeks, but official results won’t be available until February.

The last full-scale census was in the spring of 1990. The timing of the special Ames census is coinciding with the release of the U.S. Census Bureau’s biannual update based on information from public records and tax returns. The two figures are causing some confusion, Kindred said.

“I’ve gotten some interesting phone calls,” he said. “People saw that census results were in the paper, and then our census people came to the door. I think that the timing of the two together did a little more damage because then people think ‘Oh good it’s over; I don’t have to do this.'”

Kindred said the special census was initiated because of a mistrust of current numbers.

“We feel very strongly that there may have been an undercount back then,” he said. “There are some unique things about our community that cause us to question whether everyone was counted.”

Ames gets about half its population from ISU students, posing some problems for the 1990 census, Kindred said.

Factors that may have contributed to an undercount, Kindred said, include a larger ISU population in the fall than in the spring and door-to-door polling techniques.

“Sometimes you get ten college students living in a house that’s only zoned for five,” he said, “and we have to assure them that the information won’t go to the landlords, or the student loan services or anyone else.”

“We’re trying to help people understand why this is so important,” he added, “but some people don’t think that it should apply to them.”

Deb Ostrem from the U.S. Census Bureau said the census is running fairly smoothly.

“The biggest problem we’ve run into are people that refuse to participate, and that makes our job harder,” she said. “In every city there are always going to be people who take a stand against government ‘intrusion,’ but we have to account for them somehow, and we get the information any way we can.”

That includes asking landlords and neighbors for needed information needed, she said.

“We have been stressing that this is totally confidential,” Ostrem said. “We don’t ask for names and nobody else can see the data we’re taking. We just want to get the correct count. It can really help the city plan for the future.”