Syracuse, N.Y. (NCC News) — A year from now, Rahzie Seals, an organizer with the Workers’ Center of Central New York and Central New York Counts 2020, plans to go to her cousin’s house on Syracuse’s West Side, with her laptop in hand. Because the 2020 Census will be the first to be completed mostly online, Seals knows she will have to step up to make sure her family without internet gets counted.
“I’m going to go there with my laptop like, ‘Hey, guys, you know, this is serious,’” she said. “Here’s my laptop, here’s my hotspot, let’s go fill out the census.’”
Seals and a dozen others called attention at a press conference Monday to other families who may not be able to easily fill out the census.
New York Counts 2020, a statewide coalition of community-based organizations (CBOs), called for New York State to invest $40 million in CBOs for census training, education, and assistance, twice amount included in the latest state budget. The coalition warned that changes to the next census, such as going online, a citizenship question and insufficient funding, present new challenges for counting New Yorkers in underrepresented neighborhoods.
“These changes will yield significant under reporting for immigrants and communities of color,” said Fabiola Ortiz-Valdez, the coalition’s manager of member engagement. “It’s just going to make it so people can’t respond or don’t feel safe answering the census.”
The key to preventing this is for New York Counts 2020 to work closely with local CBOs, she said.
“CBOs ensure that New York State has a fair and accurate count,” Ortiz-Valdez said. “We know that CBOs are the solution for these challenges and crucial to ensure a fair and accurate count because they are already working with these hard-to-reach, hard-to-count communities.”
She added, “These communities are mainly low-wage workers, undocumented communities, new Americans, refugees, and mixed status as families.”
The Central New York Community Foundation, a local charity that makes grants to other charities and civic efforts, is one of the CBOs working with New York Counts 2020. The Community Foundation made a $10,000 grant to support the work of the coalition and local count coordinators.
“The census is our best opportunity to get a sense of who’s living here and what their needs are,” said Frank Ridzi, the foundation’s vice president of community investment.
Ridzi explained the census is essential because it determines federal funding, congressional representation, and community resourcing.
He added, “If that count is inaccurate for any of a number of reasons, it makes it very hard to address our community needs.”
