Census 2020: The push is on to count every head in California. The stakes are huge.

Miguel Sandoval remembers his mother telling him to hide in a bedroom in 2000, when U.S. Census takers came knocking on their door.

Sandoval was a child then. He isn’t hiding any more.

The Perris resident and U.S. citizen, 31, showed up on a recent Sunday for a training session about how to help people understand and respond to the Census. After getting some pointers about how to talk with the community about the Census, Sandoval set out with other volunteers to canvass nearby neighborhoods, encouraging people to fill out U.S. Census forms and answer their doors when the the head counters come knocking.

The volunteers rang Perris doorbells, passed out flyers, and even stood on a busy street corner next to a loud banda (wind and brass) – all to call attention to the 2020 U.S. Census.

Though the once-a-decade count is almost a year away, state workers and representatives from local governments – along with networks of non-profits, academia, corporate and multi-cultural organizations in Southern California – already are planning for it. Specifically, community volunteers, like those with the Training Occupational Development Educating Communities (TODEC) Legal Center in Perris, are meeting face to face with residents to encourage participation.

As his group walked through a predominantly Latino neighborhood, Sandoval, a union carpenter volunteering with the Legal Center, gave one resident this simple advice: “Be aware that next year, you need to fill out the census….  It’s very important.”

If anything, “very important” might be an undersell.

The data gathered by the U.S. Census helps determine how much federal money flows to every state, county and city. That money, in turn, touches nearly every element of public life – public safety, education, transportation, environment and social services, among others.  For California, right now, federal allocations amount to about $76 billion a year.

Beyond funding, census numbers also allocate political power. Population numbers set the number of seats each state gets in the U.S. House of Representatives, which in turn affects the number of electors in the Electoral College. In addition, the data can affect redistricting plans that shape local and state representation.

Getting a full head count for a state, or any community within that state, can shape political and economic clout for a decade or longer.

The decennial count – held every decade since 1790 – paints a numerical portrait of America, with socioeconomic, cultural and economic data broken down by cities, counties and states. Questions (the 2010 U.S. Census included 10 questions on the short form) include an individual’s age, ethnicity and race, whether he or she is a renter or homeowner, and how many people live in each home.

Though the census is, by law, a count of the population, and not citizens, the 2020 census also could include a question about citizenship.

That question has generated heated political controversy, court fights – and much of the motivation for volunteers like Sandoval and others who want to be sure every head in Southern California is counted.

When Sandoval and his fellow volunteers approached Perris resident Saul Contreras outside his home, Contreras wasted no time bringing up a question about the question.

“The question—is it going to be on there or not?” he asked.

Sandoval, like everybody else, can’t say yet. But an answer is expected in June, when the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to issue a ruling on the citizenship question. Last month, during in-court arguments, the justices seemed sympathetic to the Trump administration, which wants to include the citizenship question on the census for the first time in decades.

The question, and the court’s apparent sympathy to it, has frustrated immigration advocates and others who believe the Trump administration is trying to discourage Hispanics and other minorities, citizens and otherwise, from being counted. Any undercount would reduce political clout for communities with large immigrant populations; communities that, in recent cycles, have trended Democrat.

And in communities that have felt targeted by the administration’s crackdown on immigrants – a crackdown that has included record levels of arrests and deportations and a push to deport even young immigrants who were brought to the United States as children and raised in this country – the citizenship question is perceived as nothing less than an unveiled threat.

“People are terrorized by that question,” said Contreras, 50, who works in an auto parts warehouse.

Luz Gallegos, community programs director with the Legal Center who also was walking with the volunteers, quickly responded: “This administration wants to terrorize immigrants. But if we are part of the fear, they win.”

Then, repeating a line she said several times later, Gallegos added: “Everyone who breathes must be counted.”

Outreach and money

California is spending $100.3 million to help ensure an accurate head count next April. In addition, there’s another $54 million in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed 2019-20 budget to boost the state’s census response. The money will help finance outreach work and media campaigns, including advertising in different languages targeting specific communities.

By comparison, in 2010, California spent just $2 million to encourage state residents to respond to the census.

“We were at the height of the economic recession. We did the best that was possible at the time,” said Diana Crofts-Pelayo, spokeswoman for the California Complete Count—Census 2020, the state office that is leading the effort.

The money is bigger this go-round, with California – the state with the most immigrants – seeing value in an accurate count.

“We are… funding the most toward a comprehensive outreach and communications strategy than any other state in the nation,” Crofts-Pelayo said.

Los Angeles, Orange County, as well Riverside and San Bernardino counties combined, are each getting a chunk of money from Sacramento, partly to work with community organizations and reach out to the hard-to-count communities.

Of nearly $26.7 million allocated specifically to county governments, Los Angeles County is getting the biggest cut: nearly $9.4 million. And of another $30 million pot split between 10 regions in the state, Los Angeles County again is receiving the most to be distributed among non-profit organizations: about $8.5 million.

“L.A. is the hardest to count city in the hardest to count county in the hardest to count state in the entire nation,” Crofts-Pelayo said.

Meanwhile, $3.9 million was set aside for Orange County and $5.1 million for Riverside and San Bernardino counties combined. Additional money is coming from philanthropic organizations, the amounts of which vary. In the Inland Empire, for example, philanthropies are spending $500,000 toward a more accurate count.

“There’s a lot more money going out the door for census outreach,” said UC Riverside Professor Karthick Ramakrishnan, director of the Inland Empire Census Complete Count Committee. “But at the same time, we have a more challenging environment for census taking.”

Challenges, tactics

The citizenship question isn’t the only potential hurdle to an accurate head count next year.

The 2020 census will be the first conducted primarily online, meaning people who don’t have access to broadband access might be left out. A report from Pew Research last month found that about 10 percent of all Americans don’t use the Internet.

To help those residents, or others who simply have questions, communities will set up questionnaire assistance centers and kiosks in places like libraries and other publicly accessible spaces. The plan in Orange County calls for between 40 and 100 such assistance centers, said Sarah Middleton, a spokeswoman for Charitable Ventures or Orange County, a non-profit selected to serve as the regional administrator helping coordinate county efforts of some 85 organizations.

The county also is planning community get-togethers, such as one on June 19 at the Delhi Center in Santa Ana. In addition, there will be census-oriented training sessions with volunteers from organizations such as Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Middleton said.

The goal is to reach people “where they’re at” – whether it be a PTA meeting, a church, a community center or their own homes, said Deborah Phares, project manager for Census 2020 at The Community Foundation, a Riverside organization tasked with helping to get an accurate count.

Many point out that immigrants aren’t the only people reluctant, or hard to find, when it comes to answering census questions. Renters, Muslims, African Americans, very young children – all are groups that, traditionally, are undercounted.

“Some people in the Muslim community are very concerned about their privacy,” said Rida Hamida, founder of Latino Muslim Unity. Hamida said she plans to educate people about the importance of the Census during taco truck events at local mosques.

Californians have a history of being left out of the census. In 1990, for example, the state was undercounted by an estimated 835,000 people, a number that was “disproportionately worse than the national undercount,” according to a 2018 California Legislative Analyst’s Office report.  That resulted in California losing more than $200 million in federal funds as well as a seat in Congress, according to the report.

Those involved in the 2020 U.S. Census say there’s more coordination than ever among non-profits,  counties and others in California, with more in-depth mapping and data tools being developed.

“Historically, everybody did outreach, but in silos,” said Michael Gomez Daly, executive director of the Inland Empowerment, which is working on data management to help ensure that get-out-the count groups in Riverside and San Bernardino counties aren’t overlapping.

“We want to track who we talked to, who has responded, and who hasn’t,” Daly said.

One tactic might involve “pledge cards” with individuals’ phone numbers, so they can be called back next year and reminded to fill out the questionnaire, he said.  What may work in one area may not work in another, he said.

The goal is to make sure the message about answering the census is delivered by people who are already well known in a particular community. The hurdle is that the message is being delivered on behalf of an entity that, in some communities, isn’t trusted: the U.S. government.

“We need trusted messengers,” said John Dobard, a program director at Advancement Project California, which is helping coordinate efforts for the count in Los Angeles County. “Who can validate government messages.”

Face to face

As Sandoval and other volunteers in Perris went house to house, the responses they heard were mixed.

One woman, speaking in Spanish, told the volunteers that she’d never heard of the U.S. Census, but was interested. And another pledged to participate. A third – a U.S.-born citizen who kept slipping into English when addressed in Spanish —admitted he hasn’t participated in the past.

Sandoval stuck to a simple message: “Don’t be afraid to be counted.”

Contreras, one of the first homeowners Sandoval approached, took the flyer. After giving it a quick read, he promised he would follow-through.