STRESSING IMPORTANCE
Tonko teams up with YouthBuild to encourage census participation
TROY, N.Y. » U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko led a discussion on Thursday morning hosted by the Commission on Economic Opportunuity and Troy YouthBuild.
It was attended by YouthBuild students, CEO representatives, a representative for Rensselaer County Executive Steve McLaughlin, Troy Mayor Patrick Madden, and representatives for the 2020 census.
The roundtable discussion’s purpose was to raise awareness of the importance of the upcoming census. Self-response for the census begins on March 12, and in April census workers will start going door to door to collect information from households that haven’t participated yet.
Each of the discussion participants couldn’t stress enough how important participating in the census is. For starters, it’s mandated by federal law. Everyone living within the United
States’ borders must be counted.
Additionally, an inaccurate count can lead to a loss of funding for vital community programs.
“This is extremely critical work,” Tonko said during the discussion. “There are about 325 federal programs that depend on the census to distribute $9 billion.”
Many of those federally funded programs are responsible for funding at the state and community level, providing money for a wide variety of com
munity resources. Programs that benefit from census- driven funds include Title 1 education grants, senior programs, special education services, vocational rehab grants, workforce initiative grants, Career and Technical Education grants, and nonprofit community organizations such as CEO and Troy YouthBuild.
“We can deny funds to our community simply by not counting everyone,” Tonko said. “So my message today is, let’s be greedy.”
An accurate, complete count of Rensselaer County will ensure that it gets as much money as possible for the laundry list of programs and organizations that need it. It is especially important for the young adult demographic, aged 18-24, to be completely counted. The young adult population is one of the most undercounted demographics in the entire census. The other is young children aged 0- 5.
An inaccurate count in these demographics means less money that goes to the most important part of both demographics’ lives: education.
Based on the 2010 census results, more than $10.5 billion in aid was given to the state for youth programs, career development, and education within the last 10 years. For every individual not counted in the 2020 census, less money is given to the state that can help future generations.
This year’s census results will impact the quality of life for the next decade.
The census bureau is taking as many steps as it can to ensure that participation is as easy as possible. That includes adapting with the times and offering lots of options. Self-responders can participate in the census online, through a smart device, by phone, or by mail. Assistance will be provided in 59 languages and will be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. There will even be a concerted effort towards the end of March to count the homeless.
Rensselaer County has formed a Complete Count Committee, co- chaired by CEO Chief Executive Officer Katherine Maciol and Troy Savings Bank Executive Director Leslie Cheu.
The Committee’s goal, which is receiving support from the community and the state, is to make sure every person in Rensselaer County is counted, making sure the county gets as much money as possible based on the census results.
“It’s a really great group,” Cheu commented. “A real coming together of the community. We’ve had so many positive responses so far.”
Madden pointed out that much of the funding that helps to improve the city, from improving the parks to fixing sidewalks and roads to promotion of homeownership and homelessness prevention services to public safety equipment, is directly derived from census results. Educational resources, from free lunches in the elementary schools all the way up to research grants at RPI, all come from census funds. Most of the programs and organizations that help Troy to continue growing and thriving rely on an accurate census.
Saul Verdejo, a student with Troy YouthBuild, spoke about the direct impact the census results will have on him and his peers. He spoke plainly, eliciting the biggest response from the audience - the only speaker at the discussion to get a standing ovation.
“Troy isn’t as big as some of the other areas on the map. On paper, it looks like Troy isn’t struggling, but when you look around, you see your neighbors struggling. Let’s make sure that we all get counted,” he said.
“This is your opportunity to show that this community counts,” agreed Ian Hull, the Census Bureau’s deputy regional director for the New York regional census center.
At the end of the discussion, Hull and Tonko took questions from the audience. Most of the questions were centered on concerns about identity and safety.
Census questions are meant to gather basic demographic information - such as name, age, gender, race, and how many in a household.
The questions for the 2020 census have adapted from previous years to include a wider variety of options for describing relationships within a household. Officials said the question about race is open- ended, with multiple ways of answering including a write-in space. While the gender question remains binary for now - the only choices being male or female - that is being examined and may change for the 2030 census.
Tonko and Hull both stressed that census participation is safe. By law, no information that could be used to identify an individual or a household is allowed to be given to any branch of government, including law enforcement.
Tonko briefly touched on the recent striking down by the courts of the president’s desire to put a citizenship question on the census, commenting that the president’s actions had led to a lot of fear about census participation.
“The fear factor is still there,” he said. “But we want everyone to know, you have nothing to fear from participating in the census.”
Hull spoke about nurturing voices of trust in the community, helping people to understand that the census will not be used to target them in any way. He suggested further fostering that trust in the programs that the community uses, such as Head Start daycare, and making it easy for census participation by bringing the census to those programs.
“Let’s get tablets in the Head Start centers,” he suggested. “Then whoever picks the kids up - moms, dads, uncles, grandparents - can fill out the census right there and make sure they’re counted.”
“Let’s overcome that fear and get a total count,” said Tonko. “When everyone is counted, we have everything to gain.”