Gross Census Undercount in Poor Areas Alleged

Los Angeles’ poorest communities with the greatest needs were “grossly undercounted” by census enumerators, Deputy City Atty. Jessica Heinz told a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors on Monday.

Officials from 20 cities met to plan a strategy to convince legislators that preliminary census figures undercounted residents in cities both large and small, particularly in neighborhoods with low-income and minority residents.

The problems with the methods used to count populations were amplified in Los Angeles and other large urban centers with significant ethnic populations, Heinz said.

“Undocumented immigration into California is tremendous,” Heinz said. “People in L.A. don’t live in the kind of way where you can use a mail-out, mail-back process and have it work; a lot of our city doesn’t speak English.”

Fear of overcrowding and immigration laws also deters residents from filling out the form, she said, adding, “People don’t believe it is confidential.”

The complaints will be voiced today before the House Post Office and Civil Service subcommittee on census and population by mayors from Chicago, Baltimore, Denver, Brownsville, Tex.; Winston-Salem, N.C., and Meridian, Miss. The cities hope to win congressional support for adjusting the 1990 population figures. However, the final decision on whether to revise the count rests with Secretary of Commerce Robert A. Mosbacher, who has until next July 15 to decide.

Conference participants agreed that in attempting to persuade the Administration to adjust the figures, cities should document any measures that they took to aid their local census bureau in counting residents, particularly when the information conflicts with preliminary census counts.

For example, in Los Angeles sanitation workers wrote down the address of each house in 400 randomly selected city blocks. Their numbers showed 4.5% more housing units than were reported in preliminary census numbers, Heinz said. In another study, after counting the number of idle gas meters and examining rent stabilization figures, city workers concluded that vacancy rates in certain neighborhoods were only half that recorded in the preliminary census, Heinz said.

The Census Bureau’s preliminary figures put Los Angeles’ population at 3.42 million--up 15% from 1980. However, the city claims that at least 49,513 dwellings were not counted, which could increase the city’s population count by 123,783.

The mayors also will tell the subcommittee that census officials are failing to give adequate feedback on whether they are incorporating the data provided by cities in their post-census studies.

Post-census studies conducted by officials in 1980 showed a 4.65% undercount in Los Angeles, but the corrected figures were not incorporated into the city’s population total. Since 1990 base figures are based on the previous decade’s census, the preliminary figures are too low even if mistakes in counting were not a factor, Heinz contended.

In 1986, East Los Angeles was a test area for the census. After a post-census enumeration study was conducted, significant undercounts of minority groups were revealed: almost 10% of the Latino community was missed, 7% of the Asian population was overlooked, and 9% of African-Americans were not counted, Heinz said.

By knowing how officials used the post-census data, cities could decide whether to demand an increase in the current 2% limit on the number of housing units that cities can challenge, the conference concluded.

The mayors will also ask the census subcommittee to move up to April 1, from the current July 15 date, Mosbacher’s deadline for announcing whether the census figures will be adjusted nationwide.

Many city’s laws require them to redistrict before July 15, 1991, which means that the newly drawn districts will not reflect the latest population figures, the mayoral representatives said.