Bug hobbles city’s push for census

The city spent more than a year getting ready for the 2020 census, with leaders vowing not to repeat the mistakes of the past, when the response rate for Big Apple residents was below the national average.

Then coronavirus struck. “We’ve had to significantly alter our outreach strategies all across the city of New York,” Julie Menin, director of Mayor de Blasio’s office for the census, told the Daily News. “There are enormous hurdles and challenges with our inability to have any in-person contact.”

“Hundreds” of events, along with door-to-door visits reminding New Yorkers to fill out the census, were scrapped, according to Menin. So were popup stations at libraries, where people would have been able to fill out the form. A multimillion-dollar ad campaign on the subways, where ridership plummeted as New Yorkers followed guidance to isolate themselves as much as possible, went out the window. The federal government suspended its census field operations.

Menin and her team went back to the drawing board. They’re now spending remaining funds in the city’s $40 million pot for census outreach on digital town halls, “text-athons” and highly targeted ads on social media.

The deadly virus has also led the city to tweak its messaging about the census, which the federal government calls on to allocate all kinds of funding, among other important uses.

“In light of COVID, we have really brought home the point it is also about health care, it’s about funding for hospitals, it is about funding for children’s health insurance,” Menin said.

Rap superstar Cardi B is helping spread the census message, noting the timing of the census in a tweet urging New Yorkers to participate.

“This census is IMPORTANT, now more than ever, to getting the resources we NEED in our communities,” she wrote.

In lieu of knocking on doors, Menin’s office is directing staff and volunteers to text their peers to remind them of the census.