Census 2010: S.I. Workers Urge Borough's Immigrants To Fully Participate
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Census workers have been targeting immigrant neighborhoods in Staten Island, to make sure the expanding population is fully included in the count. Borough Reporter Amanda Farinacci filed the following report. Every day, dozens of immigrant workers come through the doors of El Centro de Hospitalidad, an immigrant advocacy center in Port Richmond that offers a variety of services to the quickly growing immigrant population on Staten Island.
Back in 2000, neighborhoods like Port Richmond showed especially low rates of participation in the census, and this time around, census workers are hoping to change that.
"We've increased our population by one percent just since last year, so the amount of people here on Staten Island has grown tremendously since the last census," says U.S. Census worker Marianne Maloney. "We just need to get everybody counted in order to get the funding to provide for the growth and expansion that we've had."
Ten years ago, fewer than 500,000 people lived on Staten Island, but since then the borough's immigrant population has exploded with influxes of immigrants from Latin America, Russia, Asia and Africa.
The 2000 census counted fewer than 7,000 immigrants from Sub-Saharan Africa on Staten Island. Now, city planners estimate roughly 8,000 immigrants come from Liberia alone.
To help target these new immigrants, the census has partnered with faith-based organizations and community groups to encourage everyone to participate.
So far, 38 percent of Staten Islanders have filled out census forms, just below the statewide average of 41 percent participation.
"Every opportunity that we have a crowd together, it could be food pantry, it could be a community meeting, it could be a meeting about know your rights, we always make sure that we talk about the census," says Gonzalo Mercado of El Centro de Hospitalidad. "And we keep telling people it's safe, and we don't have to worry about anything. But we need to count your people and we need to count your family."
There are 74 questionnaire assistance locations across the borough, where people who may need help filling out the form can speak with census counselors. For a list of those locations, visit www.census.gov.
Staten Island has a big financial stake in the census outcome, because more participation means more federal money to help build roadways, schools and hospitals and maintain social services.