Only council district without a councilmember has NYC’s lowest census response rate
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Former Councilmember Rafael Espinal’s district has the city’s lowest census response rate. Espinal left office in January and has not been replaced. Photo by John McCarten/City Council
By David Brand
For weeks, the only New York City council district without a councilmember has recorded the lowest census response rate in the five boroughs.
The lack of representation in Bushwick and East New York’s District 37, home to a huge “hard to count” population, has only complicated census outreach efforts there, say city officials and the district’s former councilmember, Rafael Espinal.
Just 47 percent of households in District 37 completed their 2020 Census forms as of Sept. 1, according to weekly reports compiled by the city’s census team. It’s one of only two districts in the city with a response rate below 50 percent. The other is South Brooklyn’s District 44, represented by Councilmember Kalman Yeger.
The citywide response rate is 58 percent, with council districts accounting for a wide range of census participation. Northern Manhattan’s District 10 and Northeast Queens’ District 23 had the highest response rates in the city at 68 percent as of Sept. 1.
Espinal, a second-term member, left office in January to take the top job at the Freelancers’ Union. Nine months later, his old seat remains empty after Gov. Andrew Cuomo cancelled a special election to fill the position as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Espinal said he would have done things differently if he knew the district would go unrepresented for nearly a year during a pandemic, an election season and a census push.
“I would say that if I had known that there was a pandemic on the horizon that was going to affect our city to the point it has today, there would have absolutely been no way I’d consider leaving,” Espinal said.
In June, the city council laid off two former Espinal aides who continued providing constituent services in District 37. Four staffers field phone calls from constituents and refer questions to staff working for the legislative body.
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While Espinal’s old district has gone without representation, elected officials elsewhere in the city have held rallies urging constituents to complete the census, conducted routine outreach among low-income and immigrant constituents with disproportionately low response rates and advocated for more census funding.
Espinal said the vacant council seat has “created a lot of complications for the district.”
“There has been a lack of on-the-ground constituent services,” he said. “The constituents don’t have someone who is day-to-day thinking about how to expand the services that currently exist.”
Espinal said he has seen more Census workers canvassing the neighborhood in recent weeks, likely owing to the low response rate — a trend in the community dating back to previous counts.
District 37 had a 49 percent response rate in 2010, one of the lowest percentages in the city. A council official said that staff have reached out to district residents through email blasts, a “text-a-thon” and ongoing events. They also continue reminding constituents about the census whenever they call with issues.
“Traditionally, District 37 has had an extremely low response rate on the census, which is why the Council prioritized the district during its census outreach this year,” a Council spokesperson said. “The Council will continue to urge District 37 constituents to complete the census and is planning another outreach event there this month.”
Nine of every ten households in the district are considered “hard to count” by the city’s Census team because of the large concentration of low-income, non-English- speaking and immigrant residents there.
In most cases, the districts with the highest “hard to count” rates, including neighborhoods like Corona, Elmhurst and parts of Southeast Queens, have among the lowest response rates in the city.
For example, the seven districts with the lowest response rates each have “hard to count” rates of 84 percent or above. They all had census response rates of 51 percent or below as of Sept. 1.
Brooklyn’s District 40 defies that trend, however. The district includes Crown Heights, East Flatbush, Flatbush and Kensington and has city’s highest hard-to-count rate — 95 percent — but a 14th-best Census response rate of 61 percent.
Population data obtained through the U.S. Census determines federal funding and congressional apportionment. An undercount means New York could lose out on billions of dollars and up to two House seats.
New York City’s Census 2020 Deputy Director Amit Singh Bagga said advocacy from elected officials and partnerships forged between government leaders and nonprofit organizations play an important role in increasing participation.
“We’ve seen across the city that when local elected officials have demonstrated leadership on the census – an existential activity that determines the political and economic futures of their communities – more New Yorkers pay attention, and response rates go up,” Bagga said.
“NYC Census 2020 has greatly benefited from strong partnerships with many elected officials throughout our campaign, and we urge all those who represent New York City, from City Hall to the halls of Congress, to join us in mobilizing and organizing towards a complete count during our final and critical push to ensure that all of us are able to obtain the money, power, and respect that are rightfully ours.”
