The amount of federal money allotted to San Francisco—used for basic social services like affordable housing, education, health care, food stamps, and city services like policing, transit, and water—is based on the number of people who live in this city. The last census count, which took place in 2000, undercounted the number of people living in San Francisco by around 100,000. This resulted in approximately $300 million in federal funding lost over 10 years, though some estimate as much as one billion dollars in lost revenue.

While the City was able to recover some of this lost funding in 2005, many organizers have vowed not to allow this mistake to be repeated during the 2010 Census.

“The estimated 100,000 residents of San Francisco who were not counted in 2000 were mostly in low-income areas, like the Tenderloin neighborhood,” said Steve Woo, Community Organizer at TNDC. “There is a lot of fear and mistrust of government in low-income communities here in San Francisco and filling out a form with personal information can be intimidating.”

The census count requests the head of each household in San Francisco to return a census form with information about the number of people that live in their household and personal demographic information including gender, age, and ethnicity. There are many language barriers in low-income communities, seniors living in isolation, and concerns that include multiple families living in one house and immigration law, making low-income populations among the most difficult to count.

“The primarily low-income Tenderloin was ground zero for the undercount that took place in 2000 that has cost San Francisco millions of dollars,” said Don Falk, Executive Director of TNDC. Don has made this issue a priority since joining the San Francisco Complete Count Committee in 2009, a committee commissioned by the Mayor and the City to bring together heads of non-profits to tackle this important issue. “We’re working hard to encourage and facilitate the full participation of this neighborhood in the 2010 census.”

TNDC is partnering with a city-wide collaborative— the Yes We Count Collaborative— to make sure low-income people are included in the census this year. In late 2009, the City and County of San Francisco granted approximately $300,000 to be used by this coalition of 13 non-profit and organization partners, each representing a different neighborhood in San Francisco. Representing the Tenderloin, TNDC will receive $20,000 to conduct census canvassing and outreach to encourage residents of this primarily low-income neighborhood to participate in the census count.

“We’re trying to make it a part of neighborhood residents’ civic duty and community pride to fill out the census form,” said Steve.

TNDC will use this funding to hire neighborhood residents to canvas door-to-door, educating the neighborhood on the importance of including themselves and their families in the count. “We will emphasize hiring low-income residents, as they will be the best liaisons for the low-income community we are targeting. We’ll also emphasize multilingual skills since there is such great diversity here in the Tenderloin,” said Steve. The canvassing positions will pay $17 an hour in a neighborhood where jobs are desperately needed.

“The census is providing a lot of jobs, which is great for a community hit so hard by the economy,” said Steve. The Census Bureau will also be hiring neighborhood residents to serve as census workers throughout the process. TNDC is donating the use of a vacant retail space on the ground floor of our Yosemite building at 476 Eddy Street to serve as a testing and recruitment center for census workers. At this location, neighborhood residents can apply to be a census worker, fill out an application, and take an aptitude test. All residents who are hired will receive $22 an hour.

Once the hiring process is complete, the location will become a Questionnaire Assistance Center where San Francisco residents can find help filling out their census forms. A Grand Opening Ceremony for this center took place on February 10 with representatives from four community organizations joining together to strive toward a complete count in the Tenderloin.

“We stand the possibility of losing a congressional seat for the Bay Area if we don’t get a correct count. Everybody in this neighborhood needs to be included,” said Alex Darr, Local Census Office Manager. “We need to think about those people who don’t realize that they need to be counted and make sure that they understand this is important, safe, and easy. The questionnaire is only ten questions and takes only about ten minutes to fill out… we just need ten minutes of everybody’s time to make sure every single person in the Tenderloin counts.”

On April 17, a Census Block Party will be held at Boeddeker Park, a joint effort by TNDC and Community Housing Partnership to draw neighborhood attention to this issue. “This is a great way for San Francisco residents with no address to be counted,” said Steve. The event will feature food, entertainment, children’s attractions like a bounce house, and census workers ready to answer questions and inspire neighborhood residents to make sure they say proudly, “Yes We Count.”