i’ve been seeing tweets making it clear a lot folks don’t know how important the census is for their community, so!

make no mistake about it.

the census is, full stop, the difference between your community getting the help it needs from govt orgs—or getting ignored.

a thread!

source— i worked for over 3+ years in affordable housing, working on both multi-million dollar federal projects & tiny local county projects, all of which depended desperately on census data.

this thread is not to shame anyone bc i didn’t know this stuff either until then!

so, the census. at first glance it’s just data collection on what type of people live where. but it’s federally funded & vetted data collection. So when it comes to *any kind* of aid — from federal tax credits to county $, it’s the primary (& sometimes ONLY) data they consider

say you want money to support the women’s shelter or veteran’s you work at. could be $ to keep the lights on, could be programming, could be supplies. the first thing you’ll have to cite is census data. this is bc of a thing fed grants call “area of need”

when it comes to aid $— whether that’s state housing credits or mental health funding or veteran care or ANYTHING— govt orgs are *required* to allocate a chunk of the money to communities that need it—majority low income or bipoc or single parent households— depends on the grant

so when everything from your local women’s shelter to your county continuum of care (the org responsible for getting ALL of the mental health funding for your county) say hey, we really need housing. or a park. or educational programs. the gov says “okay—what’s the census data.”

(don’t get me wrong, it’s more complicated than that. a single application to build one housing development w/ any aid can be 900 pages long & takes months or years to put together. ask me how i know )

so the census matters! but here’s the problem — there are many people with a vested interest in communities not getting the help they need. if marginalized communities can’t show on paper “hey, we are here, we need help” the government can shrug and be like idk there’s no need!!

so it’s no coincidence when trump took office, he slashed funding to the census office, & everyone in my field was like oh...no...

& the census only happens every ten years.

meaning this is the data every single org trying to help your community has to work off *FOR A DECADE*

historically, middle class, white americans are incentivized to fill out the census while preventing & discouraging communities of color, particularly Black and Latinx community, from counting themselves, bc they can easily turn around & say “lol there’s no need there! sorry!”

it won’t matter what folks on the ground see. it won’t matter if your shelter workers know they overflow w/ veterans every night or your teachers know most kids in their school are hungry & need supplemental food programs. bc if the census data isn’t there, you don’t “exist”

& this is why you see census office budgets getting slashed. why you see misinformation campaigns & a kind of...willful apathy from anyone in an elected position who wants those $$$ to go elsewhere — whether that’s a different community, or just being cut from the budget entirely

the census effects every aspect of your life—from affordable housing, shelter funding, afterschool programs, veteran outreach, public infrastructure, mental health funding, disability assistance programs, grant programs that bring food or care or education or WHATEVER

it is so, so critically important—and it’s numbers that can’t be ignored. & this is why electeds on both sides, but particularly conservatives, absolutely hate it. because it’s data. because they can’t say a community doesn’t actually need help if the numbers are there.

& this year’s census—with the office budget getting slashed, & a drastically smaller information campaign from the federal level on trying to get people signed up—is so critical bc we are looking at the next DECADE of funding.

please fill out the census. even if you don’t care. even if you never have before. please make sure everyone *around you* has filled it out. it takes, at most, five minutes, & you can do it online. bc the effects of this can last longer than one, or even two, elections

get you & everyone you know counted & force the data to show that you & the people in your community are there. bc that can be the difference in getting funding or not. & when it comes to housing & mental health funding — that be the difference of life or death.

I literally never ask people to boost or share but this is so important. please rt or qrt or send this thread to someone you know. we absolutely have to get as many people counted as we can, bc if we don’t, we will feel it for the next ten years, or more.