CHUD helping to get an accurate
census count in Texas colonias

Promotoras, social workers from Texas A&M's Center for Housing and Urban Development, are fanning throughout Texas colonias to help the U.S. Census Bureau get as accurate a 2010 count as possible, wrote Steve Taylor in the Rio Grande Guardian.

The census count determines how much federal aid reaches the region.

"When the last full census was undertaken in 2000 there was a huge undercount in the Valley," wrote Taylor in the Guardian's Jan. 20 article.

When we get counted, said Anayanse Garza of the Southwest Workers' Union in the Jan. 17 Guardian, the government is going to allocate funds for hospitals, for schools, for Head Start, for roads, for housing and for jobs.

"If we are going to get access to that money we need to make sure we are counted and that we are counted right,” she said.

Promotoras, many of whom are colonias residents, are recruited and trained by CHUD to provide their neighbors with information on health and human services, education, workforce development and other social programs through friendly, door-to-door and face-to-face contact.

Their trips to the colonias are part of an intensive effort to break down the mistrust many of their residents have of the census.

“There is a lingering perception, particularly in the colonias, that all government agencies share information and that persons without legal immigrant status are subject to deportation by participating in the census,” Juan Rios, of Casa de Projecto Libertad, a legal services organization, told Taylor. “The community needs to understand that such agencies are independent, do not share such information, and that the census information is entirely confidential and protected by law.”

Laura Treviño, associate regional director for CHUD's lower Rio Grande region, said it's not easy getting colonia residents to participate in the census.

"The basic resistance is simply trust," said Treviño. "Trusting the people that are knocking on the door, trusting what will happen with the information given. People wonder what will happen after the census worker has gone,” Treviño said.

For Taylor's article, visit www.riograndeguardian.com

- Posted: Jan. 21, 2010 -