Boro Park Will Lose Funding + Elected Representatives According to Current Census Data

According to the current response rates in Boro Park, 41% of people have responded to the Census so far. Trailing 12 percentage points behind the rest of the city, this low response rate will lead to a loss of government funding for the residents of the neighborhood as well as a loss in elected representation.

Due to constitutional mandate, the Federal government conducts a census of the people in the United States to determine an accurate count of how many people are in the country.

When the Federal government determines how much funding to allocate for each of its different programs, they use the data collected in this Census. This funding affects programs like Medicaid, Section-8, 

Additionally, when the State and City determine district lines for what the different City Council, State Assembly, State Senate, and United States Congress maps will look like, they use the data collected in the Census to draw district of equal population size.

The Census asks questions including name, address, and race. The census does not ask about income or citizenship and all answers remain classified for 72 years.

Locally in Boro Park, the New York City government has contracted the Boro Park JCC and Belz to get the word out and make sure that people respond to the Census.

Despite people’s frustration with the government right now due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is more important than ever to respond to the census because it lets Boro Park access critical government supplied funding that so many locally rely on.

You can respond at http://my2020census.gov/ or on the phone at 844-330-2020. It only takes ten minutes and each response gets the neighborhood thousands of dollars in services.

The greatest impact we have as a community is when we count in numbers. If we don’t count, we don’t matter. In order to empower our community to get what we vitally need, we must count in their calculations.