LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles area office of the Census Bureau will be hiring upwards of 7500 temporary, part-time and fulltime employees to ensure that every resident is counted in the 2010 national census that will be undertaken this April. This was announced on Thursday, January 29, by Albert Fontenoe, Los Angeles Area Manager of the Bureau of Census.
The salary rates for the positions would range from a low $12.25 per hour for office positions, and a high of $20 per hour for crew leaders. Individuals interested in applying would need to call a toll free number – (866) 861-2010 – and get scheduled for a census test. Fontenoe announced that the Bureau would like to hire people who live in the communities where they would be assigned to work as enumerators, the term it uses for people that will visit households where residents have failed to mail back their census questionnaires. Fontenoe said these questionnaires would be mailed in March.
Every year, the Federal government doles out upwards of $430 billion based on the latest population numbers. These funds are allocated for education, health, public works and redistricting purposes. To illustrate these numbers, Fontenoe showed that a community that has 1000 undercounted residents would mean a loss in federal funding of about $14 million a year.
"Two things are significant to everyone living in the state of California," said Los Angeles Council Member Bernard Parks, who represents the 8th district of Los Angeles. "These are the census and redistricting, and anyone that falls asleep on either one of these would be basically shocked as to what may occur because of their non-involvement. It is something that we need to collectively and individually do our job on," Parks said.
Says Los Angeles Unified School District Board President Monica Garcia: "We need representation and we need the dollars; but we are also teaching our children that we all matter. So my grandma matters; my aunt matters; my neighbor matters; my friend matters. Mostly, we teach them they matter." She said the LAUSD is committed to make the nation’s second largest school district to commit to a100 per cent participation in the 2010 census.
Fontenoe’s area of responsibility covers most of urban Los Angeles, from North Hollywood to North Long Beach, and west to the Pacific Ocean. That area has five local areas census offices. It incorporates about one million housing units and households, and approximately four million residents.
In March, the bureau will set up 115 questionnaire assistance centers throughout the LA west central area to help people who are having difficulty filling out questionnaires. One thousand assistant centers will be set up in the Los Angeles area. Fontenoe said that Los Angeles is a tough area to count because of the number of languages spoken in the homes. "That is why we will be hiring people who are able to explain the census in the language of people who come into our assistance centers," Fontenoe said. "There will be 59 different language guides available," Fontenoe announced. The bureau will also have free-standing locations called "Be Counted" sites where people who did not get questionnaires in the mail can go and get them, fill them out, and still be counted. "We will count the disabled, the homeless, people who are in the hospitals, in prisons, and in school dormitories. We will send out our enumerators to knock on doors, and it is critically important to understand that you need to cooperate with your enumerators."
Fontenoe said these enumerators are not going to ask intrusive questions and pry into the families’s personal information. "So if you have someone living in your garage, we are not reporting that to the Zoning Board," Fontenoe said. He lamented that the most undercounted members of the households are young children. "They think they don’t need to be counted."
The census bureau area manager promised to count people who live in shelters, homeless centers, in cars, and on the street. "We are going to be there counting people everywhere they live." (Rene Villaroman/AJPress)
( Published February 3, 2010 in Asian Journal Los Angeles p. A1 )
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