Advocates Worry Coronavirus Could Impact California Census Count

By Sarah Mizes-Tan

The 2020 census will officially begin its count April 1 and documents will be going out by mail starting on March 12. But some advocates are concerned that California could experience an undercount due to coronavirus fears, particularly in regions that have high numbers of historically "hard to count" populations. 

There are 11 million people across the state who have been identified by the Census Bureau as hard to count. This group includes immigrants whose primary language isn’t English, and seniors. 

Many advocates and Complete Count Committees, the outreach arm of the census, had events planned around the census to educate and help those who needed help filling out the document. Now, they worry coronavirus precautions could limit their reach. 

“So we’ve seen a little bit of the effects now, certain people are not coming out of their door at all, we’re definitely seeing a little of this in our ESL class,” said Stephanie Nguyen, director of the non-profit Asian Resources. The center holds everything from free English classes to tax filing services and senior dances, and she’s seen a drop in traffic for all of those in the past few weeks. 

Though the census is available online and by mail, she said many of the people who came to Asian Resources would rather fill it out in person.

“Many of the communities that we serve, they don’t have computers, they don’t have access to internet, so they rely on community centers and community organizations to assist them in completing that application,” Nguyen said. 

“With the coronavirus, my concern is that people are not going to want to leave their homes and they’re not going to come in to complete the form,” Nguyen said. 

Her organization had been planning a census “party” to allow the Asian Pacific Islander community to come in to fill out census forms on Chromebook laptops on April 1, but they are now reconsidering the event. 

“We wanted to hold it here at our office, for the community to kind of come in and gather, and make it a big party about how we want to make sure our community is counted,” she said. 

Hmong Innovating Politics, another Sacramento-based group that was working on outreaching to specific hard to the Hmong community, has been doing informational door-to-door visits. They said they’ve been both training staff on how to de-escalate in situations where racism might arise, and they are also concerned that coronavirus fears might cause them to cancel a number of public outreach events they had scheduled over the next two months. They are considering switching to more phone-heavy canvassing if necessary. 

Census officials say while they’re monitoring the coronavirus situation, they don't think it would have an impact on the count. 

“So the good news is that for the first time, this is an online census,Linda Beech Cutler of the Sacramento Complete Count Committee said. "So to the degree that people are more comfortable staying in their home, they would have the opportunity online, they would have the opportunity by mail to take the census as well,” 

She also added that while April 1 was the official start of the census, there would be counting efforts going on through the summer. 

“There will be a period as well after April, the non-response period where you can also take it then. So there really is a very long response window that is available to people who are concerned,” Beech Cutler said. 

California receives about $115 billion from the federal government linked to the census count. An undercount could mean a drop in funding for crucial programs like Medi-Cal and the Children’s Healthcare Insurance Program or a loss of a seat in the House of Representatives.