Lester A. Farthing serves as Director of the New York Regional Census Center.

Following are the states located in the New York Region and the Local Census Offices in those states visited by the Census Monitoring Board:

New Jersey (Northern): Hudson County North LCO

New York: Brooklyn South LCO; New York North LCO; New York Northwest LCO

Highlights of the Region include:

• Approximately 7,017,763 Housing Units
• 309 Square Miles
• 2 States, 19 Counties
• 2 American Indian Reservations
• 478 Governmental Units
• 29 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives
• 4 U.S. Senators
• 39 Local Census Offices
• 28 Type "A" Local Census Offices

Additional items of interest include:

• Leads nation in population and multi-unit dwellings
• Largest number of hard-to-enumerate urban LCOs
• An extremely ethnically diverse population
• Many languages other than English spoken at home
• Region is vertical in nature

Overview

Dates of Visits:
April 12, 2000
May 19, 2000
June 27, 2000

Mailback Response Rate
61%

NRFU Workload
49,312 housing units

LCO Type
Type A Office (entirely mailout/mailback, mainly urban, hardest to enumerate)

Geographic Description
The Hudson County North LCO was located at 2201 Bergenline Avenue in Union City, New Jersey and was responsible for ten North Jersey municipalities. According to the February 2000 Tract Action Plan, there were 75 tracts in the LCO, of which all were HTE. According to the 1990 PDB, there were 116,897 housing units. The LCO was in an urban area, ethnically and linguistically diverse and featured the largest concentration of Cuban-Americans outside of South Florida. The office's territory included the famous Meadowlands sports facility (Giants' Stadium, Continental Airlines Arena and Meadowlands Racetrack).

Pay Rates

Presidential Members' Summary

Summary
The office was led by an LCOM who used his skills as a former military officer and engineer to run a well-organized and disciplined operation. Population in the LCO area is urban and extremely dense. Enumeration challenges included a large, undocumented immigrant population, at least 14 different languages spoken in the area, and overcrowded rental apartments. Gated communities also posed a significant challenge, but support from the Mayor of Secaucus and the Hudson County Surrogate Court were very helpful in this matter.

Observations
The LCO stayed in close contact with local politicians by sending weekly reports to the mayors of the ten largest cities in its jurisdiction. The LCO tracked NRFU efforts by city, which encouraged healthy competition among cities and mayors.

Due to a dramatically better than expected mail response rate and the large applicant pool, the LCO finished NRFU on June 12. Recruiters did not have problems hiring bilingual enumerators to work for the LCO, with the exceptions of finding speakers of Korean and Vietnamese.

Success at this office was tied to the LCO's resourcefulness. For example, when the office met delays in receiving Spanish-language materials, the LCOM arranged for an immediate shipment from Albuquerque, New Mexico. When the postal service had problems delivering census forms in one neighborhood, field workers passed out 4,000 Be Counted forms in the streets and left extras at area shops. To help find undocumented immigrants, enumerators took down every ethnic business address within the LCO's jurisdiction and mailed a letter to the owners asking them to encourage their employees and customers to cooperate with census personnel.

Congressional Members' Summary

Summary
The Hudson County North office appeared to address significant challenges and set an example of inter-government cooperation and successful HTE planning.

Observations
The office enjoyed strong support from its county government and despite the substantial challenges of language and population diversity, exceeded its recruiting goals and NRFU. The Hudson County North LCO also ranked first in terms of recruiting of the ten North Jersey offices supervised by the New York City RCC. This LCO was the second North Jersey office to complete the NRFU phase of Census 2000 operations and also ranked highly among all offices supervised by the New York City RCC.

Two of the four districts enumerated by this office offered significant challenges. One area, in Hoboken, reported refusals by residents of high-rent apartment buildings and gated communities. To meet this challenge, the LCO undertook cooperative efforts with the Hudson County CCC and local mayors, access was gained to the gated communities and census operations completed. A large immigrant population was a challenge in another area, East Newark.

Unlike other LCOs that were visited by the Monitoring Board, the county reportedly gained access to tract-by-tract NRFU progress reports by contacting Representative Robert Menendez (D-13) and Regional Director Lester Farthing. Around May 1, the Census Bureau reportedly agreed to provide tract-by-tract information to elected officials no later than the third week of May in order to assist in NRFU.

Overview

Dates of Visits:
March 28, 2000
May 8, 2000
June 12, 2000

Mailback Response Rate
55%

NRFU Workload
79,464 housing units

LCO Type
Type A Office (entirely mailout/mailback, mainly urban, hardest to enumerate)

Geographic Description
The Brooklyn South LCO was located at 333 Avenue X, New York, New York (in the Gravesend section of New York City near the Ocean Parkway exit of the Belt Parkway). According to the February 2000 Tract Action Plan, there were 145 tracts, of which 141 (97.24 percent) were HTE. According to the 1990 PDB, there were 159,654 housing units. The LCO is responsible for several neighborhoods, including Brighton Beach and Coney Island. This area has been a major destination of Russian Jewish immigrants for many years; the LCO requires language expertise in Yiddish, Chinese, Spanish and French Creole.

Pay Rates

Presidential Members' Summary

Summary
The Brooklyn South LCO manager, as well as the Regional Office's Area Manager, benefited from previous decennial census experience. The LCO stayed on track throughout our three visits. This appeared helpful in counting the diverse community, which was 97 percent HTE.

Observations
Russian Jews make up a large portion of the area with a significant influx of Hispanics in the last several years. Additionally, the area contains a diversity of population groups including West Indians, African Americans, Chinese Americans, Arabs, Indians, Pakistanis and Italians.

Given the diversity of the community, the office's greatest challenge was to gauge the appropriate ethnicity of applicants. Application forms did not require such information. Overall however, the office did not experience recruitment problems. Managers realized that they needed additional Spanish-speaking, Arab and Italian enumerators and in May they trained 30 such enumerators. The LCO jurisdiction contains very large apartment buildings but recruiters had no problems attracting applicants from those buildings.

The initial mailback response rate was 55 percent, finishing almost nine percent ahead of expectations. As one of the 18 LCOs in the New York Region to complete its workload by June 8, enumerators finished NRFU in time for the first wave of the vacant and delete check operation.

The office worked well with the partnership specialist but the LCOM would have preferred to have a partnership specialist assigned to the LCO on a permanent basis. As it was, the office held weekly meetings and kept in frequent communication with the partnership specialist. The LCOM also felt that it would be more useful for the Partnership Specialist to report to him directly, rather than the RCC. Nevertheless, local partnership and outreach was good. The Hispanic community posed a challenge because they are new to the area and had yet to develop strong organizations. In general, the jurisdiction enjoyed strong support from storeowners, churches and community boards.

Congressional Members' Summary

Summary
The Brooklyn South LCO made an effort to meet the needs of its linguistically isolated communities. There were efforts in three major areas to assure language needs were met: "Be Counted!" sites, enumeration and partnership. These efforts may have assisted in promoting a higher response rate.

Observations
The LCO management staff worked in conjunction with 40 partners to open QACs/"Be Counted!" sites on or about March 31. These were located primarily in libraries and staffed with a combination of paid staff and volunteers. Given the area's varied language requirement, the LCO made every attempt to staff these sites with the predominant language of the neighborhood. Almost 3,000 people were served at the LCO's facilities.

The LCO was successful in hiring culturally sensitive enumerators to meet the needs of linguistically isolated residents. Although the office ranked 33 of 39 among New York City RCC's LCOs, the staff was innovative in identifying solutions. For instance, the LCO's recruiters worked with storeowners and churches to recruit Mexican enumerators.

While the LCO did not establish any formal relationship with a local CCC, the LCOM indicated that the associated Partnership Specialist had formed good working relations with the area's large Russian Jewish population in this area.

The LCOM also described a significant safety problem during blitz enumeration of certain apartment buildings. Specifically, the red census identification vests worn by enumerators repeatedly caused many residents to call the police. In New York City, the color red is the color of the infamous "Blood" gangs. Neighbors were concerned this gang was invading their neighborhood. Furthermore, the LCOM reported that the red vests did not reflect well at night. Since this could endanger the well being of census workers, more attention must be paid to enumerators' clothing and identification in future censuses.

Overview

Dates of Visits:
March 20, 2000
May 1, 2000
June 12, 2000
Mailback Response Rate
61%

NRFU Workload
45,793 housing units

LCO Type
Type A Office (entirely mailout/mailback, mainly urban, hardest to enumerate)

Geographic Description
The New York North LCO was located at 4290 Broadway, New York, New York (in Washington Heights). According to the February 2000 Tract Action Plan, there were 49 tracts, all HTE. According to the 1990 PDB, there were 111,672 housing units. The LCO was responsible for four distinct neighborhoods, three in Manhattan (Hamilton Heights, Washington Heights and Inwood Heights) and one in the Bronx (Marble Hill). This area has been the main destination of Dominican immigrants for 30 years and has the largest concentration of Dominicans outside of the Dominican Republic. The LCO required language expertise in Spanish, Russian, Yiddish and to a smaller degree, Korean and Italian.

Pay Rates

Presidential Members' Summary

Summary
The LCO received a higher than expected mail response rate of 62 percent. Along with this achievement and extremely effective recruiting, the office successfully conducted operations.

Observations
During our first visit to the office in March, the office led the New York region and ranked third nationally in recruiting (highest number of recruits relative to each LCO's recruiting goal). By June, the LCO moved up to the number one spot in the nation in recruiting. To attract qualified Spanish speaking applicants, the office tested recruits in Spanish. In addition, the LCO helped the New York Northwest LCO find Hispanic enumerators for Spanish Harlem. In all, 15,000 people were tested.

In one of the most diverse regions in the nation, the LCO faced urban challenges such as difficult to enter apartment buildings, resistant building managers and unsafe neighborhoods. Furthermore, LCO staff estimated recent immigrants from at least 30 different countries resided within the LCO's jurisdiction. Surprisingly, enumerators also had significant problems with upper and middle class residents who complained that the census was too intrusive.

This office was directed by an extremely competent, experienced LCOM. His experience in three decennials and sincere sense of civic duty contributed to the success of the office. The LCOM was very complimentary of the way headquarters developed the plan for the Census.

Enumerators could benefit from photo-identification badges in this urban LCO. Badges used during this census identified enumerators by signature only. Residents might be more comfortable with a picture of each enumerator on his or her badge. Managers in this, the Orleans Parish and San Diego South LCOs mentioned this suggestion.

The LCO enjoyed tremendous support from the community. The office hosted a "Census Awareness Conference" in March, which was attended by leaders from the religious community, health service providers, immigrant organizations, school board officials, community board members and political leaders. Community volunteers helped make QACs operate successfully; nevertheless, the LCOM suggested that QACs should have been open one more week.

Congressional Members' Summary

Summary
This New York North LCO epitomized the best practices of the Census Bureau's HTE plans when combined with the leadership and flexibility of a bright, energetic LCOM who reflected and understood the ethnic composition of the LCO's region. The LCO had great outreach and recruiting success, tempered by its own concerns remain regarding the effectiveness of the Targeted Non-Shelter phase, as well as the restrictive use of the local CCC.

Observations
The office was ranked third nationally in terms of recruiting and had the highest mail response rate (65 percent) in New York City, demonstrating the importance of effective outreach efforts in ensuring a successful census. The LCO staff attributed these successes to advertising in different languages, aggressive community outreach and hiring managers from the community. Recruiting efforts by the New York North office were commendable. The office had almost three times the amount of qualified employees as originally projected. The office led the way among LCOs in removing barriers to hiring. It assisted other local offices with administering English Proficiency Tests and provided other translated material. This indicated that the other offices were not as prepared to administer the tests and distribute Spanish-language material mainly because of delays in receipt from headquarters.

During our April 5 visit, the LCOM was unable to discuss the office's HTE Action Plan, as it was still in draft. This document was normally drafted to assist employees in deploying strategies from the Bureau's "Toolkit" (for example, blitz enumeration in large housing projects, team enumeration in doorman-type buildings, and QACs in subway stations). Since the document was not provided to us, it could not be evaluated.

One area, however, suggests an opportunity for improvement and policy clarification. The LCO did not use its CCC, chaired by a member of Alianza Dominicana, a well known Dominican advocacy organization, to the fullest extent, because the LCOM had been instructed that it was the Partnership Specialist's responsibility to initiate the creation of the CCC and to support its activities. For example, the CCC was not consulted on identifying locating, and staffing QACs/"Be Counted!" sites (though the office's 40 QACs helped 6,000 people to fill out their forms). However, because the LCOM lived in and knew the neighborhood, he identified locations with heavy traffic for the QACs/"Be Counted!" sites, including the offices of the Alianza Dominicana.

The relationship between the LCO and the community was strained at times. The CCC held a press conference in mid-March to denounce the LCO for lack of follow-up with job applicants. They tried to express the confusion and frustration among the community regarding the timetable for testing and hiring enumerators and the perceived lack of cultural-sensitivity to the Latino community. Other sectors of the community directed criticism at the LCO for not having Spanish-language census forms readily available at the QACs/"Be Counted!" sites until the final week of March and for not having enough Spanish-language resources available. The LCOM quickly resolved these issues, and the CCC was pleased that the LCOM listened and was responsive to their concerns.

Another area in need of improvement would be the Census Bureau's policy that prohibited enumerators from going underneath subway stations, up to rooftops or into vacant buildings, places the homeless often use. This policy could have adversely affected the overall success of the Targeted Non-Shelter phase of Census 2000 operations. Despite visiting twelve locations in one day, only 123 people were enumerated during the five-hour period (7:00 p.m. to midnight) allotted for this task. Compounding this was the frustration of the LCO staff with training for this phase, which was held the day of the enumeration.

Overview

Dates of Visits:
February 23, 2000
April 6, 2000
May 22, 2000

Mailback Response Rate
49%

NRFU Workload
62,925 housing units

LCO Type
Type A Office (entirely mailout/mailback, mainly urban, hardest to enumerate)

Geographic Description
The New York Northwest LCO was located at 101-115 West 116th Street, New York, New York (in Harlem). The February 2000 Tract Action Plan identified all 60 tracts as HTE. According to the 1990 PDB, there were 154,588 housing units. The LCO is responsible for two distinct neighborhoods, East Harlem (Spanish Harlem) and West Harlem (Black Harlem). While East Harlem used to be almost entirely Puerto Rican, there is a rapidly growing Mexican community and a significant, longstanding Dominican community. West Harlem's population included African American, African and Caribbean households, and a small but growing French African population.

Pay Rates

Presidential Members' Summary

Summary
Overcoming early facility problems, this LCO was able to successfully recruit a large number of qualified applicants, achieve a higher than expected mail response rate, and finish NRFU operations ahead of the June 28^th national completion date.

Observations
In its April 1, 2000 Report to Congress, the Board reported that this LCO had numerous facility problems. These problems were largely solved by the time Board staff re-visited on April 6. Most deficiencies were promptly addressed after GSA withheld the rent from the owner of the LCO's building. However, the elevator was still not in operation. An agreement with the next door neighbor, Harlem Hospital, provided the necessary access.

All 60 of the LCO's census tracts were HTE. With a higher than anticipated mail response rate of 48 percent, the expected workload was reduced to just over 62,000 households. This initial success allowed the LCO to concentrate its efforts on getting the most accurate count within a tight timeframe.

Given the high unemployment rate in the area, recruitment was fairly successful. The LCO did experience some recruiting difficulty in the Mexican community. In an attempt to recruit more Mexicans, the Asociacion de Tepeyac de Nuevo York set up a special testing site that proved helpful.

There were some tensions between the community leadership of East and West Harlem. East Harlem, populated primarily by Latinos, wanted the local census office located in its neighborhood, and run by a Latino. The LCO manager recognized this frustration and felt that she worked hard to compensate. Additionally, some East Harlem community leaders said that the Latinos were getting the lowest paid jobs.

The New York North local census office assisted the New York Northwest office when it experienced problems recruiting Mexican enumerators. Some community leaders of East Harlem felt not enough efforts had been made to recruit employees or to encourage census participation. This lead to some tension between the African-American and Hispanic communities.

The LCO reported very good support from the City Council. Specifically, two members of the council encouraged census participation with bullhorns on the streets of Harlem. Additionally, the LCO sponsored two "Census Awareness Days" to publicly promote census participation.

Congressional Members' Summary

Summary
It is clear that this LCO faced many challenges in the very difficult and important task of counting this historic neighborhood. A more proactive and affirmative relationship between the LCOM and the Partnership Specialist could have alleviated the growing tensions between the community leaders in East Harlem and the LCO. The members of the East Harlem CCC do not believe an accurate count of their community was made by Census 2000.

Observations
The New York Northwest office was highlighted in our April 1 report to Congress. In that report, we noted the office's operational challenges — apparently poor coordination with partnership staff, slow delivery of supplies and inadequate physical facilities.

There were some improvements in the physical conditions of this LCO during our three visits, thanks to the efforts of GSA, including picking up trash, eliminating rodents and providing running water. However, a number of other basic infrastructure problems made Census employees' jobs difficult. For instance, though the office was located on the second floor, the lack of an elevator made the LCO inaccessible to the handicapped and the handling of deliveries a major problem.

Though we are confident LCO management staff wrote an HTE plan to address its difficult census tracts, the plan was not provided by the New York City RCC or the Bureau's Field Division, despite repeated requests. Management staff reported it intended to employ the blitz and team enumeration strategies from the Bureau's "Toolkit."

The East Harlem CCC initially attempted to work with the RCC to relocate the LCO from 116th Street to a more centrally located El Barrio site as well as with the LCOM in order to recruit and hire staff that reflected the ethnic composition of that neighborhood. Frustrated by what they perceived to be slights and lack of action on both the part of the RCC and the LCOM, their efforts escalated.

The LCO was criticized in Spanish-language newspapers and was challenged by influential members of the community, especially by the East Harlem CCC, for its insufficient recruiting efforts and a lack of sensitivity in recruitment. A key concern of the community was the LCO's ability to hire enough Latinos, specifically Mexicans (the largest Latino group in East Harlem). They expressed concern with Spanish-language testing arrangements, a prerequisite for hiring some enumerators. Though the LCO's AM had an arrangement with Asociacion Tepeyac, a well known Mexican advocacy organization, to administer the tests, the facilities were not conveniently located. Specifically, the New York Northwest LCO was located on West 116th Street, but Asociacion Tepeyac was at East 14th Street. After encountering difficulty administering the tests, the LCO management staff eventually located a test center in the New York North LCO (i.e., Washington Heights, 2234), even further away from the applicants' neighborhood. Towards the end of the recruitment process, the LCO finally located a Spanish-language test site in El Barrio.

In an attempt to respond to the requests made by the CCC, a Partnership Specialist was hired whose ethnicity was Mexican. During several conversations with members of the CCC, they emphasized that the Partnership Specialist had never contacted them although one member is the head of the largest Mexican advocacy organization in El Barrio and another is the District Leader of that neighborhood. They were not aware of any specific outreach efforts or events conducted by the Partnership Specialist and believed that their community had basically been ignored.

Interpreting a lack of sensitivity on the part of the LCO, the East Harlem CCC enlisted the assistance of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF) to intercede on their behalf with the Regional Director of the RCC and the LCOM.

Furthermore, the city government, led by Mayor Rudy Guiliani, made dedicated efforts in community outreach by publicizing the need to participate in the census count and trying to assure the city's residents that it was safe to open the door to enumerators.