Officials sound alarm bells on New Orleanians not filling out census
10th September 2020 · 0 Comments
By C.C. Campbell-Rock
Contributing Writer
An emergency situation has popped up regarding federal funding to cities and states. Initially, the collection of 2020 census data was slated to end on October 31, 2020, but that deadline has been moved up to September 30, 2020. As such, New Orleans is at risk of not getting its fair share of the $1.5 trillion that is set to be disbursed based on census-derived data.
“When they try to limit the amount of time we have to count ourselves, which is significantly less than every census that has been taken, somebody is actually intentionally trying to limit our authority, our power, and the resources that have to come back into our communities,” said former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who launched Census in the South: Road to Recovery with Fair Count Founder Stacey Abrams. Census in the South: Road to Recovery is a virtual bus tour across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina that encourages people to complete the 2020 census.
If every family doesn’t fill out the 2020 census form, New Orleans will end up on the short end of the stick for funding critical services.
Some of the programs that will be funded include Medicaid; Medicare; Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); WIC; Social Service Block Grant; Foster Care (Title IV-E); Head Start/Early Head Start; Federal Pell Grants; School Nutrition; State Children’s Health Insurance Program (LA-CHIP); Homeland Security; FEMA Highway Planning & Construction; Crime Victim Assistance; Community Facilities Loans/Grants; Section 8 Housing Program; Special Education (IDEA funds); maternal and child health programs food assistance, including free and reduced-price school lunches; special education; Head Start; after-school programs; classroom technology and more.
The census has been around for centuries. The Bible tells us that Jesus’s father Joseph traveled to Bethlehem to be counted in the census because his father lived there.
“The 2020 census will direct more than $1.5 trillion dollars to the states through more than 300 federal programs every year, for the next ten years, and allocate political power through reapportionment and redistricting. As the nation recovers from the COVID-19 global pandemic, an accurate census count will be crucial to ensuring that communities receive their fair share of resources and political power. For every person missed in the 2020 census, states lose thousands of dollars in programmatic funding every year,” Abrams said.
“We need every federal dollar we’re entitled to,” says Arthur Walton, director of intergovernmental relations for the City of New Orleans, and chair of Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s Complete Count Committee.
Currently, only 56.6 percent of New Orleans residents have completed the census form, which has nine questions and takes about 10 minutes or less to answer.
While the current completion percentage is better than the 2000 count and the 2010 updated population count, money was left on the table back then because many New Orleanians were still displaced from Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans also lost a congressional seat because of the undercount.
The undercount in New Orleans and other heavily-populated African-American cities in the state, is the reason why the state is considered to be a red state. Even though Governor John Bel Edwards is a Democrat, the state legislature is dominated by Republicans.
It’s important to fill out the census, so that African-American citizens have a chance to elect people who will appropriate a fair share of funding to their communities. For example, “If you were a city of 500,000 or more you received $1.5 or $1.8 billion directly,” from the CARES ACT, Walton explains. Since New Orleans has fewer than 500,000 residents, “The CARES ACT money went to state legislators who disbursed the money to the city.”
Of equal importance, Republicans in state legislatures have traditionally used census data to carve out districts. It is a fact that they have gerrymandered Black people out of the opportunity to choose their own representatives by creating district lines that either pack Black people into a single district (like in New Orleans) or disperse them among predominantly white districts, which dilutes the Black vote. They can do this because of census undercounts.
This is why out of six U.S. House of Representative seats and two U.S. senatorial seats afforded to Louisiana, only one seat is held by an African American, U.S. Representative Cedric Richmond. The rest of the state’s federal seats are held by white men.
Walton and Adele London, the federal coordinator for the census, and others on Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s Complete Count Committee started more than a year ago to educate citizens and encourage them to answer the census. Cultural events were planned until COVID-19 put the brakes on the city’s slate of community activities. Although census takers are still going door to door, in hard to count areas, the number of census takers in the field is down, due to COVID-19.
Now the city of New Orleans is urging residents to use their home computers, cell phone Wi-Fi, or direct calls to the Census Bureau’s automated system to answer the census.
“We are trying to demystify the process. We are trying to get good information in the hands of our people,” says Walton who acknowledges that some people are fearful of answering the census for a variety of reasons.
“The census does not ask your political affiliation, nor does it ask for social security numbers, or your bank information. The president is not going to have your data or your address. You give more information to Amazon when you place an order than the census requires. Also, the records are sealed for 77 years,” Walton explains.
Responding to the census is safe, secure and available in multiple languages. If you have not yet completed the 2020 census, please visit www.My2020Census.gov to complete it online. If interested in completing the census by phone, call 1-844-330-8282.
The links below offer more information on being counted. Walton is asking residents to spread the word about the importance of completing the census and encouraging their neighbors and extended family members to fill out their census forms immediately. “If you’re sitting on your couch or wherever you are, do it now. It only takes about 10 minutes.”
The following links offer more information about the Census:
https://nola.gov/neighborhood-engagement/news/july-2020/be-in-that-number!-complete-the-2020-census!/
https://www.facebook.com/1374752858/videos/10217605075343432/
Big Freedia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SANOoGzo9SU&feature=youtu.be
Mama Jamilah (Ashe’ CulturalCenter): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg8VN2CeSn4&feature=youtu.be
Demario Davis- 2020 Census NOLA Counts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of5_-RrKUcg&feature=youtu.be
This article originally published in the September 7, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
