Manhattan Borough President Awards $52k For Census Outreach

MANHATTAN, NY — Twelve Manhattan-based community groups will receive $52,000 in grant funding from Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer to organize outreach and participation efforts for the 2020 census, Brewer announced Tuesday.

Brewer is allocating funds to census outreach to ensure that members from under-represented groups such as people of color, recent immigrants and the formerly incarcerated are counted accurately in the once-every-ten-years study. The grants are part of Brewer's "Make Manhattan Count" initiative being led by Deputy Borough President Aldrin Bonilla, who conducted outreach in Washington Heights and Inwood for the 2010 census.

"With these grants and the diverse membership of the Manhattan Complete Count Committee, we are building the network and dedicating the resources necessary to meet the real challenges of the 2020 Census," Bonilla said in a statement.

Organizations receiving funding include:

• Emgage (in partnership with Tdjani Islamic Community of New York);
• Korean American Immigrant Heritage Foundation;
• The Interfaith Center of New York;
• Uptown Grand Central;
• The Carter Burden Center for the Aging;
• Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance (in partnership with People’s Theater Project);
• University Settlement Society of New York;
• Immigrant Social Services;
• NYS Conference of NAACP Branches;
• Vision Urbana.

The selected groups all applied for the funding and were awarded grants based on the strength of their applications. The borough president's office weighed applications based on a number of criteria including the organizations' ability to manage funds, communities served by the organizations and their plans on how to conduct census outreach.

Groups will use the grant money to drive census participation through the use of social media, canvassing, information booths at places like NYCHA housing, public art installations and distributing information at community events.

"I can't say it enough: there's a lot at stake for New York City in the 2020 Census, from federal funding to our representation in Congress, so we have to make sure all Manhattan residents are counted," said Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer.

The census has been taken once per decade every decade since 1790 as required by the United States Constitution. The survey determines how federal funding is spent for the next 10 years and also determines how electoral votes and members of congress are distributed.