A group of Michigan non-profits are concerned not all state residents will be counted on the upcoming 2020 census. Those organizations are teaming up to make sure groups such as immigrants, homeless people, and minority children are fully counted in 2020.
Hassan Jaber is the executive director of ACCESS and a co-chair of the “2020 Nonprofits Count Campaign”. He says there’s a lot at stake for Michigan with this census.
“Many critical programs such as children’s programs, housing programs, Medicaid, Medicare … forty percent of the state’s budget comes as the result of census numbers.”
Campaign co-chair Donna Murray-Brown says the upcoming census presents new challenges to counting those groups.
“We have a citizenship question that’s being proposed to be on the census. We also have the idea around more online engagement that the federal government wants to do to be able to get a census count.”
Jaber also points out Michigan could lose a congressional seat as a result of the 2020 census. He says language barriers, as well as a possible citizenship question on the census, could make it difficult to fully count immigrant communities.