Organizations in Syracuse already scrambling to find safe ways to reach hard-to-count populations for the census because of the pandemic now have one month less to gather and submit that information. The Trump administration announced this week that the census bureau will end field data collection and stop collecting data September 30th.
Olive Sephuma is director of the center for New Americans with Interfaith Works. She says their outreach is critical to families who don’t know what the census is and why it’s important.
"We are the organizations and individuals that the New American families we work with know and trust, and we can convey this information to them. We can help them with the process."
Sephuma says they were hoping for more time to reach residents, not less, due to the pandemic.
"So many of the tools that we were using as an agency to help ensure the census information would reach the New American families were taken away from us by the pandemic."
That includes the ability to hold education, language, and technology classes, and making kiosks available at the Intefaith Works office wherre people could complete the census. Now, she says, they'll have less time to rely more on the option of last resort: Canvassing door to door.
Mayor Ben Walsh expressed extreme disappointment in the shortened time frame, saying it undermines the work being done by the city and so many partners over the past few months.
"The numbers have slowly gone up, but not fast enough. We understand, though, that we have numerous what are considered hard-to-count populations in the City of Syracuse. That's why having as much time as possible to do the enumerations, to knock on the doors is so important. Understanding that the time will be limited, we just have to double down on our efforts with the remaining time to try to get everyone we can to fill it out."
Both Walsh and Sephuma worry that an undercount will have significant, long-term consequences for the city. The move to cut short the census and also exclude undocumented immigrants is being challenged in court.
