Los Angeles’ city foundation, the California Community Fund, announced yesterday that it would award over $2 million to help improve the accuracy of the U.S. census, which has traditionally struggled to accurately count some sections of the American populace.
The CCF said that $1.23 million would be split among a dozen nonprofit organizations for the purpose of reaching out to various communities to help educate them about the census and encourage them to participate. The foundation says that some federal grant money is apportioned based on census results, which means that social services could be spread too thin if a given population is undercounted.
The CCF’s Immigrant Integration Initiative will also receive $800,000 from the fund to pursue its goals of improving English literacy and access to social services among recent immigrants, as well as promoting improved awareness of immigrant-related issues among the general public. The initiative is expected to focus heavily on baby boom-generation immigrants.
CCF president and CEO Antonia Hernandez said that "[t]here are so many misperceptions around the census that keep people from participating, especially among underserved communities of color. In these times of dire need, it is critical that they participate not only to become active members of civic society but also to ensure L.A. County receives the federal dollars for services that correspond to our vast population."
The CCF’s donation will help a census effort that is already suffering from cost overruns and requires large amounts of funding to function. Census Bureau head Robert Groves appeared before Congress yesterday to warn that next year’s operations have already outgrown their budgets and that shortfalls could jeopardize its effectiveness, according to the Associated Press.
