U.S. Census

Mayor of Columbia, Darwin Hindman released the following statement yesterday regarding the U.S. Census:

"As Columbia’s Mayor, I want to remind all Columbia citizens of the importance of filing out their Census forms and sending them in. This simple act of citizenship takes only a few minutes, will help guide decisions over the next ten years and will affect millions in federal funds allocated to this community. As of 10 a.m. today, Columbia’s overall response rate was 66 percent. Frankly, that’s not good enough. The city’s goal is 100% participation, and we can’t get there unless each household takes action."

It was a good reminder for me to send out the following message to CMCA staff:

As you all know, CMCA is a partner with the U.S. Census to complete this year’s count. Many of you have seen Census employees working in our facilities as we are official Questionnaire Assistance Centers. The Census is critical to our agency’s and our funders’ ability to plan for the next decade. An accurate count shows where we’re growing, declining, and changing. This information means a lot for us, our schools, our businesses, and public work. Please be sure to complete and return YOUR survey and encourage your friends, family, neighbors and clients to also complete their Census survey. It’s short, simple, and confidential and I hope you’ll give it a few minutes of your attention if you haven’t already.

For those of you who have already completed and returned your survey, THANKS! Now you can help spread the word about how easy it is. :)

Another week gone

Every time someone tells me they read my blog I'm overcome with guilt about being so negligent with it. I spent some time in Cooper and Howard Counties the other day and now I'm awash in guilt. So here I am.

This week has been busy with VITA (Volunteer In Tax Assistance) kickoff proclamations. All counties but Cooper County hosted these proclamation events (Cooper County got snowed out today!). Board members and County Commissioners read the proclamations and highlighted the importance of this project. In partnership with the University of Missouri, CMCA offers free tax assistance to the public. Obviously our primary interest is in getting preparation assistance to those who can least afford to give up a portion of their return but the service is free to all who qualify (roughly income up to $49,000). Many CMCA participants access Earned Income Tax Credits, Child Care credits, property tax credits, and other credits they have every right to but might not otherwise access without someone walking them through the process. Some tax preparation businesses take advantage of this knowledge by overcharging customers (in my opinion) and adding fees for quick refunds. Again, CMCA offers this service for free and it brings a great deal of cash back to our communities. Regardless of how people use their credit/refund, the economic multiplier effect kicks in as their dollar purchases services or products that in turn fund the providers and manufacturers of those products and services. So this fits in well with our Strategic Commitment to "Build community capacity to enhance economic and community assets." We're helping to put cash in the pockets of those in need AND we're supporting economic security for our community. Remember too that the EITC is for those who worked in 2009. They earned this credit and it is a privilege to help them access it.

After attending one of these VITA events I had the pleasure of visiting the Clubhouse Head Start center in Boonville. They documented the event on their Facebook page!

Stand up for yourself and be counted - 2010 Census

On a 2010 Census marketing ad I just watched, a representative from the NAACP said "stand up for yourself" and be counted in the 2010 Census. I thought this was a good way to characterize an extremely important event that many people across the country probably don't think is that big of a deal, or worse, fear big brother-ish motivations by our government to find out who we are. I attended the local Census 2010 press briefing yesterday and was impressed by the array of community leaders adamantly encouraging everybody to complete a Census survey and to encourage others to do the same. The United States Census 2010 is important to CMCA for a variety of reasons. First, it is this official count that is used as the key variable in a wide array of funding decisions for federal tax revenue. In fact, they tell me that $400 BILLION dollars worth of funding decisions are at least in part determined with census data. That's a big deal. But there's more. In our efforts to engage the community and address the issues of poverty and economic stability, we need to be able to paint an accurate picture of our community. Where's the growth? What are the trends? What does our community look like? The Census helps to frame the picture and then CMCA and other organizations add context. Lastly, at the press conference the regional director of the Census pointed out that this is the largest deployment of non-military federal employees in HISTORY. In other words, they're hiring a LOT of people. Most of these will be temporary jobs but they pay pretty well, are very flexible, and might help create a cleaner, more impressive work history for someone to take with them to their next interview. Go to 2010censusjobs.com to find out more, or to apply, or to get information to someone that might be able to use it.

CMCA will host approximately eight Questionnaire Assistance Centers in our facilities throughout our eight county service area. Census 2010 will place their new employees at these locations to help our clients complete the survey or to answer any questions people have. Further, we'll have "Be Counted" boxes in all of our facilities for clients or staff to submit their completed surveys. This is a great opportunity for CMCA to help out with an important national initiative and I'm proud to do so.

For anybody concerned about the intrusiveness of this survey or are uncomfortable sharing personal information, check out the survey online at the Census website. It's pretty safe. The whole Census 2010 website is pretty handy. It can answer pretty much any question you might have about the census and includes interesting ongoing commentary like the Director's Blog. You'll even get tidbits of useless facts. Did you know the first U.S. Census was conducted in 1790?

Caring agency

As part of my subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) way of "developing an innovative, caring agency dedicated to being an influential leader in our communities" (Strategic Commitment 5) I make a point of variably harping on smokers to quit smoking and doing the best I can to support and encourage people who are trying or have ever had an inkling of trying. I'd like to make some partial claim to about four people at CMCA who have quit since I've been here. The most recent are always the most exciting but I was just notified that one of our long time employees, a die hard smoker mind you; the kind that has a bumper sticker that says "at least I can still smoke in my car," is about to celebrate her one year anniversary from smoking. I'm really excited for her and hope that it makes a difference in her life for her health and her checkbook. Another employee just got taken to lunch by a naysayer who bet that she couldn't quit for a year. I'm proud of all of our quitters and will continue to support those that have tried or might consider it. It took me many attempts before I was able to kick the habit back in 2000, and honestly I still stumble from time to time, but I feel so good about myself and protecting my family that I can't help but promote the effort. Cheers to all who have quit and for anybody that's trying, and for those that will succeed in 2010.

CMCA celebrates success

If you haven't seen our rotating story about Charita Henderson, check it out now! Charita was CMCA's Head Start Parent of the Year then moved on to be Missouri's parent of the year and the Region 7 (Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska) parent of the year. A couple of weeks ago she found out she is the 1st runner up national parent of the year. She has been heavily involved in the CMCA Head Start program and we are all so proud of her accomplishments and thankful for what she has brought to CMCA. Head Start and all of our programs have great success stories about individuals and families that have overcome barriers to achieve self-reliance and Charita is a great representative of all of those successes.

Surprise! Surprise! Poverty is going up!

The Census Bureau just released information that indicates that poverty has gone up since their last estimate and that DOES NOT INCLUDE THE EFFECT OF THE ECONOMIC DOWNTURN. Nearly 40 million Americans are reportedly struggling with the crises of poverty. When estimates include today's unemployment rate of 9.7%, our poverty rate shoots up to nearly 15%. Think about that. FIFTEEN PERCENT of our family, friends, neighbors, acquaintances are struggling. Even that number is suspect because the poor are often not captured in census data AND the federal poverty level does not reflect one's ability to meet their basic needs. While the federal government defines poverty for a family of four as household income less than $22,050, living wage calculators put that number at nearly double for a family to meet their basic needs.

Read more about the new estimates here.

Strategy Team 1 is trying to get somewhere

I dropped in on the Strategy Team meeting focusing on "engaging the community to assure that all people have their basic needs met" this morning and was energized by their excitement. For their next meeting they are planning to ride the Columbia Transit System to various destinations like a doctors office, Walmart, and work. Seem odd? Not really when you consider that one of their three year outcomes is that "Safe, affordable, convenient transportation is readily available." This little field trip/experiment will give them some firsthand knowledge about the convenience of Columbia's system. They started by trying to gather information about the system online. Check out www.gocolumbiamo.com to try this exercise yourself. After tracking down transit system info, they started figuring out routes. I consider myself a pretty smart guy but I had to wrestle with it to figure out how I'd get from my house to my office at CMCA. Anyway, the point here isn't to criticize our current system but to look for ways to support our community's efforts to get people where they need to go. There's been a lot of work done on this and we aren't trying to reinvent the wheel but I get the impression that we're gearing up to be part of that conversation.