The Manhattan Times

Shhhh!

compiled by Mike Fitelson

Shhhh!

On Dec. 22 it will be 100 days before the official census day when forms are mailed out to every residential address in America in an attempt to count who’s living in the country.

It’s difficult to think of such things that are so far away, or anything on the back end of the holidays for that matter.

But people are. And I happen to be one of them.

I was asked to co-chair the media sub-committee of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s Complete Count Committee, an all volunteer operation including organizations across the island. Our task is simply to maximize the number of Manhattanites who respond to the census form that will begin arriving in mailboxes in March.

Getting out the word about filling in the census form seems like an easy task, except when you consider the amount of junk mail that is sent, the innumerable activities that vie for our attention when we come home and the uncertain value of an exercise as abstract as the census, particularly since it is only done once a decade and there is no instant gratification from being counted, like getting a prize for guessing the exact attendance at Yankee Stadium.

More pressingly, we must also overcome the fears and suspicions of many who conspiratorially believe that if they provide their information to the census, it will somehow compromise their immigration status, or living arrangements or other matters of privacy.

So that’s just over 100 days to convince folks that it is safe and useful to fill out and mail back the form.

That’s not a lot of time.

But Manhattan as a borough has a few things in its favor for getting an accurate count, and Northern Manhattan as a community has even more advantages.

The good news: the 2000 census was the city’s best in terms of response rate. The bad news: that rate was only 55%. Considering there will likely be 8.4 million people living in the city next year, that’s a huge shortfall, more than four times the population of Westchester County.

Luckily for the city’s average, there are a ton of Dominicans living in Northern Manhattan. As an ethnic group across the country, Dominicans have one of the highest response rates. In 2000 all of Community Board 12, except for a sliver in the lower east side along Edgecombe Avenue, had a response rate over 61 percent. Essentially, Washington Heights and Inwood pulled up the city’s average a notch or two.

Come next year, we will be looking to Northern Manhattanites to once again lead the borough.

There are several ideas being tossed around by Stringer’s committee to help raise awareness about the importance of the census, such as:

Setting a day when elected officials, community leaders and volunteers canvas subway stops, like an election season blitz.

Stamping the receipts from businesses and banks with a reminder to return the census form.

Having census messages pop up on ATM machines.

Working with the MTA to print census messages on Metro Cards and have train conductors make announcements.

So that’s where we are in the early stages of marketing the “It’s in Our Hands” campaign to Manhattanties. It’s still over 100 days away, but there are a staggering number of people to reach, across languages, cultures and attention spans.

Near as I can tell, there are two messages that we need to get out: the information in the forms is kept confidential and that an accurate count is necessary to maintain services at every level of government. Upstate New York suffered the consequences of having a population drop in the 2000 census, losing two representatives in Congress. Since then, New York City has continued to grow, garnering a larger percentage of the state’s population. It should follow that the city should receive a larger percentage of the services.

You do the math.