Senator Myrie Announces Census 2020 Complete Count Committee

September 24, 2019

BROOKLYN -- Senator Zellnor Y. Myrie and Assembly Member Diana Richardson held the first gathering of a Census Complete Count Committee this Monday evening. Complete Count Committees are volunteer committees established by local governments, community leaders, and organizations to increase awareness and motivate residents to respond to the 2020 Census.

“A lot of the problems our community faces, from the lack of resources for affordable housing, the lack of resources for education, and so much more, can be traced to our being undercounted in the Census,” said Senator Myrie. “10 years of our community’s future will be determined by less than 10 questions.”

Senator Myrie continued, “ A lot of people ask me what the solutions are to the problems our community faces. If there’s one thing we all need to do to address our problems, it is to get everyone counted in the 2020 Census.”

In the meeting, Senator Myrie, Assembly Member Richardson, and the committee members discussed the challenges to achieving a full count in Brooklyn and how they can be overcome. 80 percent of Brooklynites live in hard-to-count neighborhoods, and according to the Brooklyn Community Foundation, Brooklyn had the lowest mail return rate in the country among counties with populations of 500,000 or more.

Billions of dollars in federal funds for the programs that many Brooklynites depend on are determined by the census. In 2016, New York received $73 billion in federal funds for programs like Medicaid, SNAP, Section 8, and more. If residents in Brooklyn are undercounted in 2020, the borough could lose funds for these programs.

Community organizations and local leaders are the most trusted and effective voices on why the Census is important. Complete Count Committees are designed to serve as state and local “census ambassador” groups that play an integral part in ensuring a complete and accurate count of the community in the 2020 Census.

The first meeting of the committee took place at Medgar Evers College.

The committee includes representatives of the following organizations: