* WARNING: THIS IS AN UNOFFICIAL, INTRODUCTORY COPY OF THE BILL.
THE OFFICIAL COPY CONSIDERED BY THE CITY COUNCIL IS THE FIRST READER COPY.
INTRODUCTORY*
CITY OF BALTIMORE
COUNCIL BILL R
(Resolution)
Introduced by: Councilmember Middleton
A RESOLUTION ENTITLED
A COUNCIL RESOLUTION concerning
Title
Baltimore City Council Complete Count Coordination
FOR the purpose of exploring how the Baltimore City Council can best assist the Administration in securing an accurate population count in the 2010 Census, determining Council district organization, and identifying focus groups.
Body
Recitals
The Leadership Conference of Civil Rights, the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights coalition, founded in 1950, reports that despite more resources and better planning, the 2000 census missed more than 3 million people. Low-income communities, particularly low-income communities of color, were disproportionately undercounted in the census. As a result, many individuals were denied an equal voice in their government (since legislative districts are drawn based on decennial census data), and many communities were shortchanged on federal and state funding for schools, crime prevention, health care, and transportation.
The Conference found that there are several reasons for the persistent and disproportionate undercount of people of color and low-income people, including:
· lower response rates for mail and door-to-door collection methods in lower-income areas;
· lower education levels, illiteracy, and difficulty with the English language, affecting the ability of many individuals to understand the census;
· a ge...
Click here for full text