6 FEBRUARY 27, 2020 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
AOC entreats Queens constituents to help increase
census participation at East Elmhurst town hall
BY MAX PARROTT
MPARROTT@SCHNEPSMEDIA.COM
@QNS
At a town hall that Congresswoman Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez held on the 2020 census
in East Elmhurst on Saturday, Feb. 22, she
hammered home a message about the decennial
population survey: the stakes are high.
The results of the survey will determine how
much of $650 billion in federal funding gets designated
to New York for public education, public
housing, roads, bridges and more. It also controls
the number of seats each state gets in the House of
Representatives. If undercounted, the city’s census
bureau warns, it could lose up to two congressional
seats.
With the census offi cially starting on March 12,
federal and city census agencies gathered with Ocasio
Cortez’s constituents to stress the public benefi ts
of a comprehensive census count and troubleshoot
any questions ahead of time.
“And undercount will aff ect every neighborhood
adversely for the next 10 years. You get one opportunity
every 10 years to get this right and we have to
work together,” said Jeff Behler, the director of the
New York branch of the Federal Census Bureau.
The census is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau
every 10 years to determine the entire population of
the U.S. and where each person lives. In March, the
self-response phase of outreach will begin. Every
household in the country will receive a letter from
the Census Bureau with information about how
to fi ll out the census online. This is the fi rst time
ever that the census will be available online and by
phone.
On May 13, the follow-up phase will begin, where
the census bureau will deploy staff to door knock on
residences that failed to respond to fi rst phase. This
outreach will last until July.
In 2010, Queens had the second lowest selfresponse
rate of all fi ve boroughs aft er Brooklyn.
Only 61.7 percent of Queens residents responded
during the fi rst phase of outreach. The city’s
average was not much higher: a 61.9 percent selfresponse
rate.
In her remarks, Ocasio-Cortez personalized the
impacts of the census for her district.
“We all know Corona is one of the most crowded
school districts in the entire city and state. One of
the contributing reasons is because this neighborhood
is undercounted,” she said.
The congresswoman entreated those at the town
hall to act as ambassadors to their neighbors by
encouraging them to fi ll it out – especially those of
them who are multilingual. While the phone and
internet self-response census will be available in
12 non-English languages, Ocasio-Cortez pointed
out that in Jackson Heights, Corona and Sunnyside
there are more than 200 languages spoken.
NYC Census 2020, an agency organized by the
mayor’s offi ce, has also hired a host of community
groups in Queens to do outreach on behalf of the
census, oft en with a focus on reaching immigrant
or non-English-speaking communities.
At the outset of the meeting, the agencies listed
Allen A.M.E. Neighborhood Preservation and Development
Corp., Adhikaar, MinKwon Center for
Community Action, Desis Rising Up and Moving,
Chhaya CDC and Sunnyside Community Services,
among 25 others.
As far as the actual hiring eff orts of the census
bureau itself, Behler said that recruiting is several
thousand ahead of its goal. As the self-response
comes to a close, the agency will hire in the range of
5,000 to 8,000 staff in Queens depending on what the
self-response rates are.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks during
the town hall. Photo: Max Parrott/QNS
*Starting the week of 3/1
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