Mayor Villaraigosa Applauds Local Advocates Training for the 2010 Census

Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa joined hundreds of local advocates today to encourage their efforts to achieve a fair and accurate count of Los Angeles residents in 2010. The advocates met at the California Endowment for a day-long training session focused on reaching Los Angeles residents who are the most likely to go uncounted when the once-a-decade census takes place April 1.

“Every single Angeleno needs to stand up and be counted in this coming census,” Mayor Villaraigosa said. “We need the numbers to represent just how truly large and diverse our city is, if we want to secure the funding we truly need as the second largest city in America,” the mayor added.

The federal government uses information from the decennial count to decide where and how to spend nearly $400 billion a year on health care, education, transportation and more.  Information collected by the census will also be used to decide how many seats each state will get in the U.S. House of Representatives for the next decade, and to draw the lines for congressional, state legislative, and local voting districts.

Local advocates from community-based organizations participated in the training to encourage their communities’ full participation in the upcoming census.

The event was sponsored by the City of Los Angeles Mayor’s Office of Census 2010, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, ¡Ya Es Hora!, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.