Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — August Town Hall

hi everyone my name is lena srishanker and i am the deputy director for operations for congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez and it's my honor to be tonight's moderator for the town hall today we will hear from the congresswoman regarding the president's executive orders on unemployment benefits and other economic relief measures she will also briefly discuss the impact of the president's recent changes to the u.s postal service then we will hear from one of our panelists amit singh bhaga who is the deputy director of the new york city census he'll explain why it's important for everyone to complete the census and we'll also introduce you to some of the community organizations in our district who are doing census outreach following remarks we will open it up for q a and after the q a there will be a brief press gaggle where members of the press will be able to pose questions before we begin there are a few points of housekeeping if you are logged into the zoom meeting please use the q a feature to submit your questions please mention what neighborhood you are from alternatively you can email your questions to aoc.townhall mail.house.gov or call 718-662-5970 our staff is also available to support you with any technical difficulties our team members will be monitoring the inbox and phone and we are also live on facebook so feel free to visit the facebook page for the live stream closed captioning is being provided by all hands in motion if you click the link in the chat it will take you to a website where you can view the transcription if you require spanish translation please click the interpretation icon at the bottom of the zoom screen and choose spanish to access the spanish language audio feed please know you may also submit your questions in spanish additionally if you require mandarin cantonese arabic or bangla translation you can listen along to the town hall by calling the phone numbers we're dropping into the chat now this translation is being generously provided by the new york city census 2020. now it is my honor to introduce you to someone who doesn't need any introduction the representative for new york's 14th congressional district congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez hello everyone hello to all of our residents and our community members here in new york 14 thank you for joining us for our august town hall and once again if this is your first time joining us and i'm very proud to say that we host a town hall once a month for all of our uh constituents and our august town hall is no different but or someone that you know need to access this town hall in spanish just click on the the um button of interpretation right here at the bottom of the zoom call and um and you'll be able to get a live translation of our town hall um or if you have a question or you or a loved one have a question in spanish or any other language uh feel free to put it in right here in the chat um on zoom or in the q a feature um [Music] if you want to also call in and listen you can dial in with the number that was announced earlier so today i want to make sure that we really dive in usually in these town halls we have uh something of a theme and i'm able to kind of dive in a little bit deeper into the policies of a specific area whether it's health care housing or or some other policy initiative or legislative initiative that that we've been pursuing but i think for today's town hall given the nature of how um just how how unpredictable these times have been and how tenuous these times have been i want to make sure that we cut back a little bit i'll do my best to cut back a little bit on my usual remarks um cut straight to the chase and try to leave a little bit more time in the q a for you all so that i can answer and our team can answer uh any questions that you may have so the first thing that i want to make sure that we cover is the executive orders that president trump signed on friday um because they're quite complicated the context around them is complicated and i want to make sure that you all have full information um so the political context for these executive orders i think it's important for everyone to kind of understand that the context in which these executive orders were made and it was that and it was the following as so many of you know and have experienced unemployment benefits were on the cusp of expiring and did expire about one to two weeks ago and um and one of the main issues that we have of course is that we have a record unemployment crisis on a level that has not been seen in modern american history the only parallel that we can even consider is the great depression in terms of what we are experiencing today and it's quite shocking to say but it is not inaccurate to say that even in the great depression we did not see a shock roll out in the same way um and so really the this crisis that we are seeing economically in terms of unemployment and beyond is very unprecedented now what does that mean about 10 weeks ago we in the democratically controlled house of representatives are even longer than 10 weeks ago but but many months ago we had passed the heroes act which you may have heard of before or even recently in the news and what the heroes act provided was a continuation of the 600 unemployment benefit that we had established in the cares act uh we also also included in the heroes act was a second stimulus payment uh for every family you know four families that received it uh previously as well so that every family that qualified also received a stimulus check a second one and in addition to that continuing protections on student loans housing evictions more uh mortgages rent and so on and that's just a small slice it also included things like hazard pay and also provisions that covered itin taxpayers um that is immigrants that uh pay taxes that were left out of the stimulus checks and are often left out of unemployment programs uh our the heroes act also included um and expanded the net of people who would be able to get assistance now we in the democratic house passed this legislation months ago and what happened in the senate is that it went to the republican senate where mitch mcconnell essentially sat on this legislation did not bring it up to a vote did not debate it did not try to negotiate around it four months uh this the republican senate leader mitch mcconnell just sat and did nothing with respect to covet relief and uh it wasn't until unemployment benefits were set to expire so again nothing happened for several months no negotiations no parallel bills etc happened for months until the week that unemployment benefits were set to expire now what happened was that because republicans did not have a plan um and because they had not been negotiating with the legislation that had been passed months prior there was a sudden rush to the negotiating table but there were very few or rather really no demands that republicans were making aside from cutting unemployment benefits they wanted to cut it down to instead of 600 a week to an additional two hundred dollars a week um and generally just essentially taking what we did with cares and just trying to strip most of it from working families now this was an area where democrats and republicans obviously uh were negotiating back and forth but frankly the trump administration and the republican party would not really budge on on making these cuts and so what happened was that um instead of trying to hammer out legislation uh president trump decided to turn around and issue several executive orders now what this means for your life is something that i think is really important to communicate the reason that context is important is because first and foremost we do not know if these executive orders are even legal in fact it is my position and is the position of of many observing these process processes that the executive order that president trump issued on i believe friday or saturday may very well be illegal and so they may not even be enacted now there may be a challenge to these executive orders in court uh in which case a judge would have to make that final determination but let's put all of that aside and even if we assume that these um executive orders which many are actually memoranda so they are not really as binding or they are not buying as binding as they may seem in media and press reporting about it um even if you assume that it was completely legal for the president to do this even if you just us take everything that he had essentially issued as fact um there are still problems that we're going to have to encounter which is why i it which is why i would say that um very sadly and very tragically we cannot necessarily count on these provisions um all being kind of enacted so the first one but i will walk you through all of them so the first one is the payroll tax deferral so in this executive order the president issued an executive order to defer payroll taxes for workers who make under a hundred and four thousand dollars that means the taxes will not be collected but they will still be due this is so important for each of you to to understand because according to trump's executive order what's going to happen is that they are not going to take medicare or social security payroll taxes that you normally see in your stub that amount that usually gets taken out according to this executive order if you make less than a hundred and four thousand dollars those kind of deductions will not be made for your from your paycheck but they will still be owed they will still be due so i am very concerned um because i know that there are going to be people out there who do not know this i know there are going to be people out there who don't understand it and then what's going to happen is that at the end of the year they're going to owe hundreds if not thousands of dollars in back taxes because of the president's executive order potentially and so my first piece of advice is that if this does go into effect to make sure that you are accounting for um the the social security and medicare taxes that would normally be taken out of your paycheck and you know my first piece of advice on that would be to go to your last pay stub and take a look at how much was taken out of your last paycheck and you may want to consider stocking that away um because you know it's it's just absolutely terrible to be hit with a huge lump sum payment that you didn't ask for and that you didn't sign up for again we don't even know if all of these will be legal but if the administration moves forward forward with it um you will know pretty quickly because it'll show up on your pay stub and so i don't want anyone to be caught by surprise and to essentially be caught with a surprise several thousand dollar bill at the end of the year um or you know around tax season because of this executive order so that's the first one that i'd say the second one is this idea around extending unemployment aid to 400 a week so that's 600 that a lot of people were receiving on top of the state unemployment the the idea for this is that you that 600 will be cut to 400 dollars and you will but you will continue to receive that that general benefit now um here's the problem with this is that even with that 400 um this this area is you know probably the one probably a sticking point that is seen as being having the most complications with legality but let's say this goes through i need to explain to you all the fine print of it the first problem is that that initial six hundred dollars that you received in additional unemployment um that six hundred dollars came straight from the federal government we did not put any uh conditions on the state to administer it we did not um there were no hoops from the state level from state governments levels um that needed to be met essentially what the federal government did was that we gave this money and to the states and allowed the state to put the 600 on top of your normal unemployment check now that's not to say that there weren't any hoops that you all experienced as individuals we all know um how many people were cut out from unemployment benefits we and you know we know how horrifying this system has been with some people waiting months or weeks and weeks and weeks to receive their benefits this is not to say that there weren't any complications on that end which there are and continue to be but what this is what this says is that with the old system if you were able to get through you would get the 600 on top now what makes trump's executive order different is that trump's executive order with the four hundred dollars is only three hundred dollars from the federal government and they require state governments to kick in an extra hundred dollars in order to receive the benefit at all and so basically what this means is that if your state government does not kick in the extra 100 um to meet on and mind you this is on top of the state unemployment that you are already going to be paid then then there will be no additional unemployment benefit on top of the state unemployment now why is this so tricky the reason this is so tricky is that even if you have a state that wants to pay that extra hundred dollars many if not most states cannot actually afford to do that because in the cares act there was zero state and local funding um in in covid relief so because the federal government so there's a catch-22 the federal government has not given this has not given states any real level of strong funding um for state for states and municipalities and because the federal government did not give money to states now what the federal government is doing is saying we need you to give us money even though we didn't give you any in order to help meet this unemployment benefit so again even if these even if these executive orders which are very likely illegal stand the problem is that most states cannot afford to pitch in that extra 100 per person on top of the hundreds of dollars that they'd be paying in existing unemployment to get that extended benefit so he's created this situation but ultimately a lot of states can't afford to opt into this program at all and so even if this executive order decide even if the executive order stays and doesn't get challenged in the court or doesn't get overruled the odds of people still getting money on top of their unemployment check are quite slim um and this at its core as we know is a huge crisis and problem and um i'm just i cannot say anything else other than i am just so frustrated and sorry to each and every one of you because uh because it's not anyone at this negotiating table that is going to suffer it's working families in our communities that are going to suffer additionally so i'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news right now for on a lot of different levels but i just need to give it to you all straight so that you can make decisions for your life and and i will also let you know what our plan is moving forward what's next moving forward um so the third thing that i want to make sure that we cover is that president trump the third executive order that he had kind of signed had some flowery language about evictions um and a moratorium on evictions that language is not really binding and in fact it just kind of reiterates many existing statutes and pieces of legislation that have already been encouraged um and processed by hud and so there are no additional eviction protections from the president's executive order and so all of these to say that in these three points it's all a farce this is phony it is it is not going to help our lives and it's being presented as a political tool these executive orders are being presented as a political tool so that republicans and frankly the president can say look we did something because on their face they have language that talks about these needs but they don't actually solve any core problems in fact they create problems like with the payroll tax deferral now you've created a problem where people think that they have more money in their pocket than they actually do and this is going to turn around and bite working families in the behind and it's going to be really bad so i the reason i'm sharing all of this information with you all is because i want you to have this information the state of affairs right now so that you have information and are able to plan accordingly as much as you can in your life now the last piece of good news if we could go back a slide the last piece of good news is that in the other exactly in the other executive order federal student loan payments have been deferred until december 31st of 2020 and so that is an executive order that does seem actionable and and i i do believe that this is a absolutely positive development i'm not here to to disparage progress where progress is made um federal student loan payments do appear to be deferred until december 31st of 2020 and so my number one piece of advice is to double check your servicer because as many of you may or may not know the federal student loan deferrals were set to expire in september and so if we did not reach a deal if you owed money on september 1st you had to pay it on september 1st so my number one piece of advice would be to go to your student loan servicer especially if they are federally backed and go online and make sure that they address this deferral and confirm with them that they are in fact acting out and administering the federal student loan payment deferral um until december 31st so that is one bright spot in these um the others are things that look good but in actuality i cannot tell you in good conscience that this is something that is even going to happen and if it does happen i cannot tell you in good conscience that um that this will in fact be administered in the way that people think it's going to be administered so that's just the big thing on that again later on in the q a i'd be happy to um to field your questions about this in terms of the state of play right now um congress you know the trump administration has completely walked away from the negotiating table but house democrats do remain at the ready to negotiate at any period of time and so if the trump administration and if mitch mcconnell um get you know want to actually hammer out a deal with congress we are here and we are at the ready and we are essentially on a 24-hour on-call um notice uh to return and to cast a vote and i can give you all my commitment um today that i will be there for that vote and if if we have legislation we're gonna do everything we can to make sure that we actually get real support that we need not just kind of gestures and these executive orders make no mistake about it they're a gesture it's a fig leaf and they they don't actually they're not actually going to help people um even if it feels like it might in the short term like with the payroll tax it's going to come back to bite us and so um that's that's that note um now we can move on to our next slide and and what i want to say is you know all of this jockeying is just horrendous um people are playing games with our lives and i cannot uh express enough how much of a fundamental failure and breakdown um this represents it really doesn't matter left or right um people are hungry people are on the brink of eviction people are unable to pay their bills people are unable to pay to keep current on their mortgage payments and not and not only that but also people's credit is getting wrecked so that even if you're able to get on your feet financially this is going to have very long-term implications and so i we are you know you all have my word that we have been introducing one bill after another and rallying support to make sure that you all get the help that you need but not all of that i understand is very little um is very little solace when we need help right now when we needed help yesterday when we needed help two weeks ago when unemployment benefits expired so i wanted to go over and have this slide up um and root for resources that you all can access for immediate uh for kind of immediate channels of economic relief so there's a list of public benefits that are available to you all on the top um there is a tenant helpline if you all are concerned about eviction um again the governor had extended uh the eviction uh moratoriums or or deadlines in some circumstances um so he extended that deadline a bit um so there is a little bit of breathing room um but if you are concerned about eviction call 311 and ask for the tenant help line um there is free financial counseling um although you know that's fine and good but if you don't have money i would definitely encourage you to make sure that you're accessing public benefits and making sure you get the protections that you need uh there is a utility shut off hotline a health insurance exchange food and grocery assistance and workplace safety and of course this is just city and state there are many many more resources in the form of local mutual aid um and as well as a lot of community organizations that are rallying together many of which that we are supporting right now as well um so make sure and the other thing i just have to say is you are not alone in this moment you are not alone there are so many people millions of people over 30 million people are in a similar or in the same or similar boat and um you know the the fear and the anxiety around this time can be extremely paralyzing and the only thing that you know my piece of advice is that if you can just bring yourself to just you know hit that 3-1-1 and press send or press you know call and just ask for the tenant helpline there will be people on the other end that can help explore your options with you especially when it feels so paralyzing right now and it feels like there are no options so my the best thing i can say is to reach out make sure that you utilize some of these resources and there are lots of folks that that will be able to help you develop an action plan so let's go um to our next slide the last thing that i want to talk about are some of the recent and very disturbing changes to the u.s postal service um i'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news everyone this is a particularly rough town hall because of how difficult things have been for our community but on top of all of this we have the existential threats that are being posed to the united states postal service um several months ago uh president trump appointed a partisan postmaster general um and this was an extremely unusual move because usually the postmaster general is a career professional and they are typically a lifelong public servant for the united states postal service and so what happened under president trump was that he removed uh the or rather you know that he vacated and replaced the postmaster general and um and this postmaster general this new one um is frankly a donor he's a he's a donor i believe to uh to the right wing and to the president himself so this is a political appointment and he also has ties to um to contracts uh with with private mail carriers you know folks like ups fedex dhl those kind those are private mail carriers and um and he was you know essentially he he was tied into that industry so what the president has essentially done was remove someone that where it was typically a nonpartisan position the postmaster general was kind of a famously neutral position whose job it was to just make sure that the postal service did as best a job as it could with the resources that they had and removed it replaced a nonpartisan position with a partisan republican and trump donor um who also has a vested interest in making sure that the postal service fails so that people will be so that we can essentially transition to the only option a person having to mail a letter being a private company and so there is just an enormous amount of incentives um that not only makes this appointment corrupt but also when you layer it on top of the fact that um that the president wants to essentially delegitimize mail-in voting the way that you do that is by dismantling the postal service now i know that in our community in particular we have struggled with we have long struggled uh with postal service um because our community has historically been quite under resourced um and and that this is his that those problems have existed um but this will make many of these problems much much much worse and so really what we need to do is just make sure that we protect the postal service in this time as much as we can i won't lie to you all i am extremely extremely concerned about what will happen to one of our most beloved public services and agencies between now and november and it's extremely important that we protect um the postal service um as imperfect as it may have been in the recent past with our community it's so important because what our main problems are in are not that are are in that the postal service has been under resourced um and they're also required to prepay pensions in cash for every employee which is not a requirement of almost any other agency and so this essentially makes the postal service strapped for cash even though it's a nonsensical rule that was passed way back in 2006. anyways moving on in the good news oh sorry can we keep back on the last so in the good news is that one of the things that we did do in that my office was able to execute on was in a bill that recently passed the house i was able to advocate for the addition of 50 million in additional funds to increase the accessibility of post offices in historical buildings um this is just largely thanks to a lot of the tireless advocacy from our folks in our community here in jackson heights specifically there's been so much action and rallying um previous to to the current uh crisis that we have in the postal service there's been a lot of rallying in our community to make sure that that historical um that the historical jackson heights post office gets a ramp and gets ada accessibility retrofits and um i'm happy to say that we were able to to pass and include 50 million dollars in additional funding to get projects um to get that project and projects like it and done um which i know seems small relatively small compared to the larger issues that we have with the post office but i wanted to make sure that was communicated to you all that we did make good um on that promise and we also supported i also voted for the heroes act which includes an additional 50 billion dollars to save the usps and include infrastructure improvements so if you are experiencing service issues um you can call our office or look up your local post office but i again i would say that very very sadly and very tragically the postal service is being sabotaged by this administration and they are trying to dismantle it it is horrifying and um and at this point you know our greatest recourse is to just try to resist support the usps as much as we can and make sure that um that frankly we get new political leadership um so with that we're gonna move on to the next major area of today's town hall which is talking about the census another thing that the that the trump administration did was that they moved up the census kind of finalizing date to september 30th instead of october late october and that means that the operation to make sure that our community gets the critical resources that we need not just this year not just next year but the census determines our community funding for the next 10 years so if you have not yet filled out your census please please please do so you can do it very easily you can just pull up a tab right now and type in my2020census.gov and fill out your family census form right there it does not matter if you are undocumented it does not matter if you live in kind of a in unofficial apartment or dwelling none of that if it doesn't matter if you have a criminal charge none of these things doesn't matter if you owe somebody rent none of these things matter um the census is completely confidential completely confidential um it is illegal uh to share any information and have any information leaked from the census and so i will just toss it off to one of our panelists today amit singh baga who is the deputy director of the new york city census effort for 2020. thank you so very much congresswoman ocasio-cortez uh thank you so much for your tireless advocacy on behalf of all of us here in congressional district 14 and new yorkers and all residents of our entire nation uh you truly have been an advocate for so many of the important issues that are impacting our lives every single day and we really deeply appreciate your leadership and also thank you for uh having me join you today um i'm very proud to be a resident of new york 14 uh here in sunnyside queens uh and i'm also very proud to have been born and raised in another part of the district over in pelham gardens so just had to cross the white stone bridge to get here um so i'm here today to talk to you a little bit about the census as the congresswoman mentioned my name is amit singh bhaga and i am the deputy director of nyc census 2020 which is also known as the mayor's office of the census i will start off by just quickly saying that so much of what you heard the congresswoman discuss today in terms of the benefits we are not receiving the unemployment benefits we're not receiving the relief we are not receiving the ways in which republicans in congress and also the trump administration are essentially blocking uh money from going into your pockets that money that is being currently stolen from you is really just a part of the trump administration's larger plan to continue to steal and destabilize steal from and destabilize our communities and the census unfortunately has fallen into that trap what we've seen today is as the congresswoman mentioned the trump administration recently decided that the census period was going to be cut by a month so that the census which was supposed to be extended until october 31st of this year is now ending on september 30th which essentially means for all of those people who have not yet been counted we now have half as much time to count millions and millions of households across the country and even here in new york city which really creates an enormous strain on all of those people who have this very solemn responsibility to make sure that every 10 years each and every single one of us is counted and like with so many things the president would not be attempting to manipulate the census or to mess with the census frankly unless it were truly important and unless it was truly important for all of us and all of you and each of every single one of our communities the census at its core is essentially about three things money power and respect the census determines how the federal government spends 1.5 trillion dollars that's trillion with a t every single year for schools hospitals housing transportation infrastructure health clinics medicaid head start hiv prevention programs children's health insurance programs and so much more any program or service you can possibly think of that is provided by city state or federal resources is funded by the census here in new york city our public schools receive more than 780 million dollars every single year just based on census figures so when we do not respond to the census we are not showing up in the numbers that congress and federal agencies are looking at every single year when they make decisions about the dollars and cents that are literally going into your pockets so it is critical to ensure that we have accesses to the resources that are rightfully guaranteed to us in the constitution the resources that we rely on every single day to feed our families to get to work to educate our kids that we fill out the census power there's been so much conversation this year about power and the way in which the trump administration has been attempting to whittle away at the power that each and every single one of us has both guaranteed by the constitution and inherent in our democracy we have seen more power play out in the streets of our cities including here in new york city in the last several months than we have in decades which is a true demonstration of the power we have as people as individuals regardless of our immigration status or our citizenship status or the color of our skin to really affect change but that power that power we have all been demonstrating every single day that is at great risk if we do not fill out the census and why is that the case that is because the census determines the distribution of all 435 seats in the house of representatives the lower house of congress every 10 years states that in theory gain in population get more seats states that in theory lose population lose seats and when we don't show up in the census figures that means that the numbers that congress is looking at next year when they are determining how these seats are going to be allocated across the country new york is going to lose and currently based on our current response rates to the census we stand to lose not one but in fact two congressional seats which means the folks that we have fighting for us every single day in washington for our unemployment benefits to protect the postal service to protect small businesses to ensure that we have the public goods and services that we need to stay afloat and alive and continue that into the next 10 years that that representation is at stake here for new york city so if you believe that recovering from covet 19 recovering from this pandemic means that we have as much representation as we possibly can in washington and also in albany where critical decisions about new york city's future are made every single day you need to fill out the census and lastly the census at its core is about respect what the census really is is a count of every single person in the united states where they live this is a count of every single person regardless of their immigration immigration status their citizenship status the color of their skin whether they've been here for four weeks or 400 years it does not matter whether you want whether you are an owner of a home or a renter it does not matter whether you live in overcrowded conditions in an illegal basement or whether you own your own home every single person is counted in the census every single person has a right to be counted in the census and every single person has an obligation to be counted in the census because the census is the very basis of the way in which the federal government makes so many important decisions about the way money and power are distributed and allocated across the country it is the very basis on which we must demonstrate that we exist for if we are not counted it is as if we do not exist they say that there is strength in numbers and without showing up in the numbers we cannot demonstrate strength we cannot demonstrate that we are here that we matter and that the needs and priorities that we have need to be taken into account when decisions about us are made and so if you do not want decisions about you to be made without you it is critical that you respond to the census right now we face a crisis here in new york city and across the country when it comes to the census and i'm going to share a little bit about where we are in terms of our self-response this year despite the fact that the census has never been easier to respond to you can easily respond to it online or over the phone in just a few minutes we're behind and we have a lot of ground to make up as of today new york city has a 55.4 response rate it's gone up a little bit since the slide was designed and in new york 14 it's just about 45 this means that as of right now if we don't get these numbers up new york city and the district that we live in we're going to be losing out on 50 of the money power and respect that are rightfully guaranteed to us in the constitution so we have to do everything we possibly can in our power to get that money up we need every single one of you to respond to the census and we need every single one of you to talk to your friends your family neighbors your family members your co-workers anyone that you're ever on a zoom call with someone that you run into at the grocery store even if you're at the pharmacy or if you're seeking health care anyone you talk to you need to ask them have you taken the five minutes that it takes to fill out the census have you taken the five minutes that it takes to secure the next 10 years of our future and why is it important because you count we count and every single one of us here in new york city counts let's talk about just how easy it is to respond to the census the 2020 census is easy it's safe and it's completely confidential the tension the census is just 10 simple questions that can be answered in just under 10 minutes very easily online or by phone online you can visit my2020census.gov that's my2020census.gov we'll put the link in the chat and you can answer this question the questions in just a couple of minutes you can also call 844-330-2020-844-330-2020 to answer the census in english over the phone you can also answer the census in 12 additional languages each of those languages has its own phone number you can look up those phone numbers at nyc.gov census we'll also put that information in the chat for you the census is also completely safe as the congresswoman mentioned the census has absolutely no questions about immigration citizenship criminal history income or anything of the sort the census will never ask you for your social security number your banking information or what your political affiliation is so anything you might have heard about the census being intrusive or it being a long form or it asking you many private personal questions about your life it's simply not true it's just a few simple questions about your name your age how many people live in your household a few questions about race and ethnicity and you're essentially done lastly and this is very important to remember especially at a time like now the census is actually protected by the strongest federal privacy law that exists on the books it's called title 13 if you want to look it up title 13 is crystal clear there is not a single response that you can give to the census that can be shared with anyone anyone means anyone that includes the fbi it includes the cia it includes ice uscis the department of homeland security the department of state the nypd any law enforcement agency anywhere in the country it even includes the state or city of new york or and this is very important for a lot of folks living in new york 14 your landlord we know that there are a lot of landlords out there homeowners who perhaps have illegal basements that they've rented out to renters we also know that there are thousands of our fellow district residents who are living in illegal basements as a result of new york city's housing crisis we want to say to you very clearly and loudly the census is completely safe for you to participate in and it is applies to you as well your answers cannot be shared with anyone at any time so we encourage every single one of you to participate in the census because it is the basis for our future next slide please we'll close by talking a little bit about why the census is an emergency right now i've been going out our team has been going out every single day for the last several months talking to new yorkers about the census and even helping new yorkers fill it out and we hear from folks all the time well the census that's something that happened months ago i don't think i can respond anymore it's too late or we'll hear the census that's like voting i'll take care of it in november or we'll hear the census that's not for me we're here to tell you all of that is patently false the census is happening right now it's still happening it's not too late to respond but we don't have that much more time there is a reason that president trump cut the census short by an entire month and it's because he does not want you he does not want me he does not want people who look like us who live in new york 14 who live in new york city to be counted and why is that it is because the census is the basis of the money power and respect that we can all obtain when we are counted and only if we are counted for the next 10 years so make sure that we do not allow presidents president trump's blatant attempt to force an undercount of black brown and immigrant communities across the united states to scare you into not being counted please remember if you choose not to go online or call to complete the census the united states census bureau which is a federal agency has its door knockers out in the streets as of this past week knocking on all of those doors that have not yet responded that those 45 percent of new york city households that have not yet responded to the census you're going to get on a knock on your door very soon if you haven't already please do talk to the census taker if they come to your door but if you want to avoid a knock on your door please go online and fill out the census and you will not be getting a visit the best way to fight back against the president is simply to respond my 2020 census dot gov thank you so much and thank you so much to congresswoman ocasio-cortez and your entire team i will now be pleased to introduce some of our census community partners these are incredible leaders and organizers who have been working day in and day out here in our communities in queens they've been working despite the incredible pandemic of kovid the unprecedented challenges that have hit our communities that we are facing uh and it has truly been an honor and a pleasure to work with them and serve alongside them i'll quickly read their names and i'll turn it back over to the congresswoman's team uh to take it from there uh we have yangla from adikar which is an incredible organization that fights for the rights of the nepali community here in queens we have perla silva from make the road new york new york city's largest most successful and most incredible immigrant and workers rights organization and we had my friend and my colleague japreet singh from chaya which has been on the front lines of fighting for uh empowerment and mobilization of south asian and indo-caribbean communities here in new york city thank you so much thank you so much amit um i guess we can give our community partners who are who are so valued by our our office and our community a chance to introduce themselves first we can start off with jungla from hi everyone my name is yangla and i am the census organizer at adikar adikar meeting rights is the only woman-led community and worker center servicing the nepali speaking immigrant and refugee community the census is very important so that we get our voices heard but it's especially important um for the nepali speaking and tibetan community that adhikar services because there is not enough data out there on our community which is why we are lacking resources especially regarding language access we don't have enough interpreters in courts or hospitals and access to services in nepali and tibetan are very limited our focus when adikar does do our outreach has been on educating our people first about why the census is important um because our community is new and growing rapidly but also because the concept of a census is very new to the refugee speaking community that we service adikar has so far helped complete over 5000 census applications and reached over 4 million individuals through our engagement with national media outlets we know for sure there are more than five thousand nepali speaking and trending people in our district um and so we held various events last week we had a census week uh focusing on different parts of our district uh jackson heights woodside east elmers as well as brooklyn focusing on the undercount undercounted neighborhoods uh where we were able to help over 500 people complete the census last week i hope everyone makes sure they are counted in the 2020 census thank you thank you so much young glenn next we have perla silva from make the road hi everyone yeah pearless over here from make the road new york as we had mentioned earlier make the road new york is a great organization it's one of the largest grassroots organization of immigrants and working class people of color in new york city um make the road new york has worked so hard from the beginning of the census we focus on the sunsets because we know how important it was and we want to make sure that our whole community members are being heard and we have been fortunate enough to uh reach out to and over 100 000 community members and making sure that they know why it is important for the senses for them to participate in the senses and we have been very successful on spreading the word and everything has transitioned from like just explaining why or what the census is to now like you saw the results because 2010 we had such a low and um a very low participation from our community members that now they see the results of when the pandemic hit us we used that perfect example as we needed food pantries we needed hospitals doctors medicine so many um equipment and we didn't have that we were in we were in such a critical condition and we see that now because we were we were not counted in 2010 they didn't they didn't know how many beds they needed they didn't they saw the crisis and now people are really um listening to us and it's very important they understand why they need to be counted um thank you so much perla and last but certainly not least we have judge preet singh from chaya hey everybody uh thank you for having us on my name is jeff reid singh i'm the lead organizer with chai cdc south asian indo-caribbean communities around housing stability economic well-being but most importantly to build power we've been working on census issues since 2008 it's definitely one of the most important things we do every decade unfortunately our community is constantly under counted and underrepresented and we see the impacts of that right in 2010 the south asian community and endocrine communities in queens in all of new york city had some of the lowest counts and these are still the communities that even though there was a storm last week are still out of power to this day still see the infrastructure trees down and all these things that we don't have the infrastructural funding for we still have overcrowded schools we still don't have our languages on the ballot we don't have our languages even on the census which makes it so much harder to get our communities to really fill this out and do something about it our votes are cracked or packed depending on what district you're in and all these impacts are really bogging our communities down which is why we're out there we are out in the streets five to six times a week ensuring that our communities are filling up the census we're out there doing it in language and unfortunately you know we still have to do a lot of the hard work our the census tract of the gurdwara i go to that prayer is still at 37 in richmond hill while nationwide we're seeing 60 which is why it's so important that organizations like ours and others who are trusted who the community relies on are out there ensuring that our community is filling out the census and seeing it from familiar faces instead of institutional phases thank you very much thank you so much and next we will move on to our q a portion of the town hall with the congresswoman and our panelists as mentioned earlier constituents signed on via the zoom platform may use the q a feature to submit your questions and our team will be assisting with answering questions so you can also write your question in spanish also a reminder to the members of the press that after the q a there will be a press gaggle where members of the press will be able to pose questions to begin our q a we have a question for the panelists regarding the census the question is how can we help bring the percentage for the census up in our district is there anything that constituents can do with so little time potentially remaining sorry i was muted um i think one of the most effective things that any one of us can do is truly ask your friends and ask your family if they have filled out the census and if they haven't to help them fill it out or fill it out with them if you're able um you know it's so common for someone to have not filled out the census clearly in our community the majority of people have not yet filled out their census we are in the 40s and so um the you know there's a very high likelihood that if you ask somebody if they filled out their senses that they haven't and so i think the most effective thing that you can do as an individual person is just talk to your mother your father your grandparents your neighbors um bring it up and ask if they filled it out it is the single most effective thing that you can do um as an everyday person and if they fill it out have them ask their friends whether it's you know in their local community gatherings or in your phone calls with them um especially in a time when we are social distancing the it's the one-on-one relationships that we have to have that little piece of accountability is so important so that's my number one recommendation great thank you so much um and the next question is for the congresswoman what kind of legislation did you put forth in january to come back covet 19 when it became publicly known um thanks for this question it's uh it's an excellent one you know i believe that uh when kovid became widely or when we started to realize that kovit was becoming a problem um in january you know i think that there were areas where the transmission vectors were not fully known so this issue started really coming into play in in over the course of february i would say that it really started becoming a deeper and larger issue internationally um and we started preparing for our response um and so while we did not drop legislation specifically in the month of january and some of you may have known that the senate received a confidential briefing on this the house did not um the house caucus did not but um if that's why you're asking january specifically but in terms of the legislation that we introduced and or we have that we have either introduced or co-sponsored which is kind of like supporting and bringing to the floor we've done quite a bit we have done actions on um on paycheck on you know for example the paycheck guarantee act which goes a little bit step it goes a step further from unemployment and tries to prevent unemployment to begin with by guaranteeing the payrolls of small businesses uh we have introduced eviction um moratoriums and so rent cancellation and mortgage relief so we're so we don't make sure so we make sure that we're not punishing um small landlords or anything like that but making sure that people still get that runway with rent cancellation and finding a way to make it happen um so we've introduced and we've co-sponsored um action on healthcare guarantees as well and trying to support the idea of opening medicare to everyone but especially in this immediate moment opening medicare for enrollment from people who are recently unemployed and we've also co-sponsored legislation giving people recurring universal basic income at the very least during the duration of the pandemic if we can get a political consensus on that um so around 2 000 a month and so those are just some of the pieces of legislation that we've introduced around and have supported around kovid but there's much more we want to make sure that people's credit reporting gets suspended during this time so that if you miss a bill you know that this doesn't get dinged on you for the next seven years um we've also introduced or and supported many other uh pieces of legislation to help in the form of economic and and health relief thank you congresswoman and the next question is for amit from the census james asks i was sent to census form that asked me many questions about how many rooms there are in my house where do i get internet service from how much money i get per annum and per month was this not the actual census have i been defrauded thank you so much for that very important question so to be very clear the united states census that happens this year which is the count that happens only once every 10 years is just 10 simple questions your name uh your address which is very important your date of birth your gender they ask you questions about race and ethnicity they ask you whether or not you rent or own your home and a couple of other simple short questions there are no questions about income there are no questions about how many rooms in your house there are no questions about where you get any of your public services from it is possible that you have received the american community survey which is a longer form questionnaire that the u.s census bureau does share but to be clear that particular questionnaire with those questions is not the census got it thank you and um i think i'm if you can take this question as well evelyn asks what can you do if you can't find your original census form the follow-ups don't have the invite number i'm so glad you asked this question evelyn and i am sorry that i did not proactively address this in my remarks earlier so in order to complete the census you do not need any piece of mail you do not need a postcard you do not need a letter you do not need a special code whatsoever all you need is your name and your address if you go to my2020census.gov my 2020 you will see that it asks you to enter a code but just underneath that it says don't have a code click here all you have to do is click that link and the next prompt will ask you to put in your address and that's all you need so please don't worry if you can't find your original form or your postcard or you don't have a code none of that is needed just your address thank you so much emmett the next question is for perla from make the road new york someone asked why would or should a person who is here quote undocumented be counted in census thank you for that question it's really a good question because we do get that often and especially in our organization a lot of the people are afraid and of course because of everything we hear on the news um they're so confused we tell them one thing but the news tells you another but it is very important because from the beginning they will never ask you for your legal status and this is a perfect opportunity for you to be counted you may not be counted in other government um surveys or you're not allowed to participate in other uh government um issues but this is our opportunity this is our time that we can be um be seen and you don't have to know my legal status so it is perfectly safe for you to to trust the senses and just fill out the senses yes yes thank you so much perella and the next question is for the congresswoman is it true that if new york is under counted that it is possible that the congresswoman's district could be cut well um one thing that is um that's that is important to communicate is that just as what was communicated earlier that so many of our resources are determined by how many people fill out the census and our political represent representation is also determined by the census and so for those of you who don't know um in the house we are supposed to have about one member for every roughly 700 000 people and so if you don't have 700 000 people then you lose a representative and um and in new york if you don't fill out your census and if we lose um if we if our kind of reporting goes down then we lose a seat or one or more seats in congress for the next 10 years um and so you know the this is really important for us to to determine and now whether any one seat is on the chopping block or not is um is kind of subject to the politics of albany but there are folks that are commonly you know one of the common estimations that are out there is that the state of new york is going to lose two seats in congress um which means that there are two members of congress from the state of new york um that may not be here may not be able to represent the state of new york now that's also to say that many districts also get redrawn so you may have the same member just representing a very different community that is something that also happens um so to kind of answer your question could it happen yes um if our community does not fill out our census especially if we are far lower than where we were 10 years ago it's entirely possible that new york's 14th congressional district um you know while it may exist on paper it may look very different or it may be redrawn in very different ways and this is a very tangible consequence of how political representation works and so when we talk about the importance of the census it's to make sure that our schools get funded it's to make sure that our infrastructure gets invested in it's to make sure that that we can build enough affordable actually affordable and public housing to house the amount of people in a certain income bracket um in our community to house working class people and it also goes to political representation so i can tell you that i have no intention of going anywhere but um but also we need to make sure that we fill out our census because if we do fill out our census if we do boost our numbers then we don't have to worry about um cutting or making sure that we're reducing representation at all in fact if we can over perform in our census than we have in years past there's always the possibility of adding seats of representation but that only happens if we actually fill out our senses if we don't then yes we will experience cuts in representation in resources and just in our general quality of life thank you congresswoman and the next question is to youngla and judd preeth combined i think you guys can tag team this one but the question is what can be done by the end of september in such a short timeline to get as many people to respond to the census as possible how do we get our neighbors our friends and people in our community to fill out the census i could start off and then young law if you want to fill in so you know something we've been doing at chaya is making sure that we're going out to the places where our community is at whether it's the gurdwara every sunday where we're getting about two to three hundred folks to fill out the census or the temples or the masjids whether it's the local grocery store whether it's just the commercial corridor where our folks walk through the public plaza is where they rest at before going to work all these interactions all these places where our community is is where we need to be in order to ensure that we're getting that message out there individually folks need to make sure that you are calling up your uncles and aunties you're making sure that people within your family your networks are filling out the senses as much as they can i've been tagged in like seven different instagram tag five people to fill out the census and it's you know like i'm not the biggest fan but it works it legit works so like whatever you can do to ensure that folks are filling out the census is what you need to do and then make sure you're doing that follow-up as well don't just tell them to flip the sentences hit them up the next day to make sure they filled out the census as well yeah i mean uh what arigar's been doing is we've been partnering with a lot of elected officials with food distributions and whenever everyone's come we've made sure to include census flyers census materials ask if they filled out the census or not uh throughout the covid um pandemic it's still occurring but we also took down member names from our call logs and we went to homes and delivered um masks and hand sanitizers and also included census materials in that as for individuals like drug treats that i think it's really important first to make sure the people around you have filled out the census so uh whenever we've called our members we've also asked them if they can pledge to get 10 more people to sign up if they can just look at their phone book i think it takes like 10-15 minutes to just like text 10 other people that they know to make sure that people around them also know about the importance of census and to get more people to sign up great thank you so much and just to go back to perla for a second um i think you wanted to address the question of why the census form will ask us for our phone numbers when we don't have our codes yes thank you um i think it's very important because um it's a very frequent question and it's just um it's it's because we want well the senses will always want to make sure that there is not let's say three pearla silvas in the same building and we want to make sure that it's a valid um person being represented and it's now like a rip repeated um information but just know that you know the census will not um call you constantly and then once they have your phone number they're not going to ask you for any further information this is now where they're going to ask you for your legal status or credit card information it's simply to just make sure that there is only one perla silva in that building that i addressed to thank you perla and the next question is tell any of our panelists whoever feels up for this question greetings from sunnyside i think i filled out the census online several months ago but i forget is there any way to confirm whether my census response was recorded i'm happy to take that question if nobody minds um so there isn't necessarily a way for you to verify whether or not your census response was recorded months ago however if you do fill out the census again using all the same exact information it will show up at the census bureau's back end as a duplicate and if that happens they will call you to confirm the information you have submitted one more time if you confirm for them that yes you are indeed the same person at that same address they will simply remove the duplicate entry and the original entry will move forward and if you hadn't actually done it then you will have just completed your census great thank you ahmet and just a follow-up question someone asked if is the census still hiring um i want to just preface this by saying i represent the city of new york the mayor's office i don't speak for the united states census bureau my understanding is that the united states census bureau is no longer hiring however if you do want more information on that i encourage you to visit census.gov thank you so much and the next question is for the congresswoman can the congresswoman please address the lack of correct mask usage and social distancing along busy northern boulevard in jackson heights and east elmhurst in queens yes um thank you for bringing this up you know i have been receiving so many calls and so many messages from members of our community who are scared and who are really frightened about what they are seeing you know there are some areas that have just been packed in the streets um where especially you know on friday and saturday evenings where people have you know been going out where they've been attending restaurants and bars really really crowding not wearing masks or just even if you're just going to the grocery store not wearing a mask properly um everyone this is so incredibly important you know we as a city should be proud about how we were able to with community input and with um with all of our work and caring for each other as a community being able to get our caseload under control but kovid has not gone away and we are still in a pandemic um we have to make sure that we are caring for each other especially as we start to transition from august um into august and from august to september it's so important that we take care of each other please a mask i kid you not i was i was walking down the street like last week and i saw someone wearing a mask right up here on their head this does nothing for you este nada okay it cannot be here it cannot be here it cannot even be here okay your mask needs to be right here so um please put your mask over your nose over your mouth this is not just to protect ourselves this is to protect our elders this is to protect people in our build things in our neighborhoods and you know a lot of a lot of people will be really really surprised to learn how many uh elders live in your building how many immunocompromised people may live in your building building of all ages this is not just an issue that's impacting the elderly as we're seeing you know there were rates where there were times where some of the highest levels of um hospitalization um and really high levels of hospitalization were coming from people who were relatively young so don't take the risk please take care of yourselves and make sure that you take care of others again we are still in a pandemic we are learning more about it right there are some things that we're learning more about covid and one of the things that we are learning more about it is that it's the transmission is happening less through surfaces you know through me touching something and someone else touching that thing though transmission though that kind of transmission should you know can can happen but what we're seeing is that the most common form of transmission is through the air through breathing which is why wearing a mask is so important the other thing that we're learning is that asymptomatic people can potentially spread um covid just as much as some symptomatic people can so even if you're not having symptoms you know we've heard for a long time that if you don't have symptoms you can still spread it one of the things that we're starting to learn is that if you even if you don't have symptoms you ba you may be spreading it just as much as someone who is very sick and so please make sure that you're wearing a mask keep washing your hands keep carrying hand sanitizer but the mask is one of the most important aspects of this so please wear a mask um and you know if you are waiting to go sit down at a restaurant if you are waiting um to go get a drink keep your mask on until you are seated we don't want to respond to this issue in in a punitive way but there are already businesses that have had to have their liquor licenses suspended because of how irresponsibly people were acting so please make sure that you're supporting the small businesses in our community by not putting them in a difficult position and making sure that you're being responsible great thank you congresswoman and the next question is for you as well someone asks with the president strategically hobbling our democracy by undermining the post office and putting a donor in charge what can we do to make mail-in voting possible in 11 weeks well you know this is the question of the day the number one thing that i would recommend is that if you are going to pursue a mail-in ballot and if you know someone that is go that is going to vote by mail please make sure that they send their ballot on the first day that they can possibly send it because we know that there are going to be massive slowdowns with the post office we know that slowdowns and service are already starting to happen so please don't try to mail your ballot in just three or four days ahead of time hoping that it's going to get um in on time we don't know how bad um you know this assault on our postal service is going to get between now and november and so i believe that the most important thing that you can do is look up the if you are going to be voting via mail and ballot to vote and to send your ballot the day that you get it um or even if you're able to print it out online and send it you know whatever however your state pursues it um and from our perspective in our community if you know that you are going to um if you know that you're going to vote by mail in new york for november make sure that you apply for your absentee ballot as soon as you as you possibly can and once you get it to mail it back in because we know from even from our primaries remember a lot of a lot of people um applied for absentee ballots in their primary elections they got them extremely late so please make sure that you send your ballots in very early um and the other thing that we can frankly really do is vote in person um i wish that i had more uh good news to give you but frankly there is an all-out assault on our democracy and there's an all-out assault on our postal service and um the best thing that we can do is to just try to individually try to make that our make sure that our vote counts as much as possible and um to render a positive you know vote in november um and a positive outcome in november now the other end of this is what happens after november and what happens after november is where we're going to have to fully fund the post office but my opinion and this is a cause that i've been championing i believe that we need to expand the postal service to include postal banking basic banking like check cashing services and other types of services uh to be allowed to be done at the post office um is something that i support but again the uh all of this is is you know after you know consider any considerations of an election but in the immediate tense and immediate term i think that the most important thing to do is to mail out that ballot as early as possible if you are decided on mail-in voting and if not to make sure also you know if you can to take the day off or take the more take a half day off um of work in the state of new york you are actually legally entitled to three hours off of work in order to vote so my recommendation would be to ask for those three hours it cannot be denied to you um if you need to vote it is the state law and so my recommendation would be to just ask for those three hours and try to show up and vote as early as possible because as we all know it can be a mess here in the state of new york um machines can be broken people can be confused so even though you're ready to vote for in 15 minutes or less we all know it can be a little bit more complicated and so my recommendations is to get your voting plan together because it's not going to be easy even in a blue state like ours because this pandemic is complicating a lot of logistics thank you so much congresswoman and the next question is for perla and jack preeth from a constituent and they ask is there any way to help with the census remotely i'm in florida after my mother had passed so i'm not currently in astoria but if there's a way to help bring the percentage up i'd love to contribute can i could let me just uh say really quick because i know that emma would have more um yeah um that's great oh my god that's like absolutely the best that we need all the help that we can get um if she i'm sorry she he would be um able to contact us make the road we would um absolutely have to have as much volunteers as we could and then i'm going to give it to emmett because i know he would probably say the same thing and thank you i'll quickly jump in and turn it over back to jack breathe one of the easiest ways that you can help get your community counted or the community you're originally from counted is to simply sign up for our predictive dialer phone bank it is really really simple all you need is a phone and a computer we set you up entirely it could not be easier to use go to nyc.gov census calls that's nyc.gov census calls and you can sign up in an hour you can make several phone calls to your fellow new yorkers or former fellow new yorkers um and talk to them about the importance of the census we have a script for you we train you on the dialer it really is very simple uh even my mother could do it uh and uh you know we we encourage you all to sign up and help us increase that count uh jackpreet i don't know if there's anything you want to add no i mean i think you um answer that perfectly please check out nyc.gov census calls i actually have a bit of a challenge for you uh whoever had asked this question everybody on this chat on this uh town hall right now i want you to take out your phone right now look at five of your contacts who you think may not have filled out the census and ask them to fill out census right now right now and then once they say they have tell them give them the same challenge we need to make sure that we are continuing to push this message across as much as we can and that's the only way we're going to get this countdown thank you so much and and thank you to our panelists and the congresswoman for answering those questions before we close out the town hall section of this meeting i just wanted to give all the panelists a chance to give closing remarks thank you so much once again congresswoman thank you so much for having me here today to represent the city um thank you so much to our fellow panelists uh for all the incredible work that you've been doing on the ground for more than a year now um i want to quickly just share a couple of quick factual points um that i know came up in the q a i will be very brief i promise you but hopefully they will be helpful in answering folks questions uh and then i just have you know a parting thought to share um the first is yes the united states census bureau is the federal agency that is responsible for conducting the census that happens once every 10 years and yes the census takers or door knockers or otherwise known as enumerators are out right now so you might see them in your community in fact you're very likely to see them in your community you will know who they are because they will have a piece of id that has a department of commerce watermark on it the department of commerce is the massive federal agency within which the census bureau is housed they will also have a bag they have the sort of laptop bags that have a large census bureau logo so if you see someone like that knocking on your door it is a census taker and you can speak with them um it's one form per household i saw a few folks have this question uh if someone else in your household whether it's a partner or a parent or a family member or even a roommate or a housemate has filled it out and they included you you are set you do not need to fill out another form again the best and easiest way to respond to the census is to simply go online my2020census.gov or call 844-330-2020 and you can be counted very very quickly um to sign up to volunteer nyc.gov census calls i also want to just share one very important resource uh if the congresswoman allow me um the city has just announced a brand new eviction prevention tool this is really really important for anyone who might be facing eviction we are we were actually the first city in the entire country to provide free legal representation for any tenant regardless of immigration status in housing court in new york city we now have a whole slate of new uh options for you as well you go to nyc.gov tenantresourceportal nyc.gov tenantresourceportal and you can sign up to get a whole bunch of information you can actually call and someone will walk you through all of your options and the last thing i will say and i speak to my fellow new york residents uh new york 14 residents in in corona in pelham gardens and sunnyside uh in throgs neck um the census is truly about each and every single one of us you know i think someone asked a question about why should someone who's undocumented care to be counted in the census i think the gentleman's name is gerardo well here's why in corona where we see there is tremendous overcrowding six eight ten twelve people living in a household together where we saw the most severe impact of covid anywhere here in new york city that neighborhood when it comes time for the city to decide where we are going to build truly affordable housing for every single new yorker we need to know where those overcrowded neighborhoods are and we need to know who is living there regardless of their immigration status because the city is going to build affordable housing for everyone when the time comes and so we need folks in corona to be responding to the census and telling us yes we need those resources here and when a vaccine is finally found we're going to need to know exactly how many vaccines to deliver to that zip code and if we do not have a complete count we're not going to be able to do that so the census is for you the census is for me the census is for all of us thank you so much gracias thank you hey y'all uh again jack reidsing here with china cdc i just want to echo uh my brother ahmed's points here about why it's so important especially if you're undocumented especially if you're living in informal units like basement housing like room shares and things along those lines oftentimes it's our communities our people that are scapegoated as reasons for overcrowding for a bear on the infrastructure for all these issues which honestly and truly are not because you are because you live in the basement it's because of undercuts in the census the only thing that puts a strain on our infrastructure is undercounted census the only thing that keeps our schools from being overcrowded is under count in the census we got to make sure we aren't scapegoated we kind of fill out the census in order to do that let me just give you some quick numbers real quick the communities that we work in are jackson heights elmhurst but we also work in south queens richmond hill for example and south ozone park are both in the 40s the census tracts in our punjabi dense neighborhoods and the communities i work in are still in the 30s the only way we're going to get these numbers up are by working hard and ensuring that we have boots on the ground ensuring that people are filling out the census ensuring that we're doing it in a culturally competent way the fear out there of institutions and institutional supremacy is real within our communities right like we've seen ice raids in our communities in south queens we've seen department of buildings coming in and cracking down on basement apartments right we've seen the reasons our communities are justifiably afraid the only way to reverse that fear is by folks who look like us who understand the communities who pray in the same institutions who by roti from the same roti shops are out there and helping folks fill up the senses the time for information or telling people about the senses is over no we have to go out there and actually fill it out and help people fill it out we have all these great organizations elected officials the census new york city census bureau here volunteer come out and help us do this work because we don't have too much time left thank you um yeah you guys did an amazing job i want to thank um our congresswoman of course thank you thank you for having us all here thank you for inviting make the road new york um just want to uh follow up and just be like um it's super important please yes one more time everything that we went through um due to our pandemic and we are going to need these resources we are going to need to be counted and these numbers are going to be very important because how else are we going to recover from the pandemic how else are we going to build and make sure that our children are okay we need to make sure that they know how many of us live in a tiny two-bedroom apartment um migente we always tell you we have always said don't open the door don't open the door and now this with a pandemic it's like okay we had um we had to stop knocking the doors but census is coming around and they're going to start knocking the doors again it's great that they're going to identify themselves and we're giving this information but once again we do not want you to to get confused and now we're telling you hey if you haven't filled out the census you need to open the door we don't want that to happen so just please remember to fill out the senses online the safest way the quicker the possible on your phone everybody has a smartphone nowadays it only takes less than 10 minutes it's literally super quick and easy and thank you all so much for your time great thank you so much and thank you so much to all of our panelists for for the work that you and your organizations are doing out in the community with your boots on the ground and that will conclude our town hall segment of this meeting so thank you so much to everyone for being here with us tonight next we'll be moving on to the press gaggle section of the meeting however if you have any lingering questions please feel free to stay on the congresswoman staff will be continuing to answer questions during the press gaggle also if you need to get in touch with the congresswoman's office you can call us at 202-225-3965 for the washington dc office or 718-662-5970 for the district office additionally you can email the congresswoman and subscribe to her newsletter on the official congressional website which is www.ocasiohyphencortez.house we send out a newsletter each week and it contains the latest information on covid19 relief events that we're doing for constituents in the district as well as updates with the congresswoman's legislative agenda and it's available in english or spanish so before we move on to the press gaggle section just wanted to give the congresswoman a minute or so to give closing remarks or share any pertinent information with constituents of course as always thank you to everyone who's joined us for our town hall today uh we look forward to seeing you at our next town hall um where hopefully we you know knock on wood i'm gonna speak it into existence that we have um some relief packages that we have hopefully have passed by then or at least are on the table um to get some real support for you all please stay safe please take care of one another please make sure you're wearing your masks properly and please please please um fill out your census again i know how many of you are in just such a difficult position whether it's health-wise economically psychologically just from the stress of everything that's been going on um please do not hesitate to reach out to our office um if you need help or to reach out to any of the resources that were provided earlier today um to to get the help that you need and once again as always we're committed to making sure that we get through this together so thank you all so much thank you to all of our panelists who joined us today to help get this critical information out and um you know have a have a wonderful day and stay safe great thank you so much congresswoman and just moving on to the press gaggle portion so if you're a reporter and you're interested in asking a question please click click the q a icon at the bottom of the screen and state your name and outlet in the question field reporters who are selected will be unmuted by our admin so they can ask their question to the congresswoman directly the first question is from nicholas wu who's with usa today hi uh congresswoman can you hear me yep i can hear you great thank you so much for holding this this evening i i had a question um not about the census but about the vice presidential pick um and even so vocal and talking about trying to bring the binding campaign to the left you know are you just first of all are you disappointed at all in uh in harris as a candidate had you hoped for someone more progressive and secondly had had you talked at all with the biden campaign about selecting a vp um i so this news as we all know it broke late today it actually broke right before i started this town hall right before we were logging on to do the the tech and prep for the town hall so um frankly i'm i'm still kind of processing it after um after you know doing all of this and making sure my constituents have what they need um i think that uh the vice president you know he in in uh senator harris he has picked a vice presidential candidate that compliments him very well rounds out his ticket and also um is aligned uh with him on on quite a few issues um and so i think together um they complement one another in your as to your question about um whether the biting camp kind of reached out or or consulted me or asked me about this decision uh the answer is is no this was uh very much i believe um vice president biden's you know uh decision that that is understandably a very personal one thank you great and it looks like that's our only question for today so um we'll go ahead and wrap but thank you so much to everyone for joining tonight's town hall thank you to the congresswoman and our panelists again we really appreciate it and have a great uh august and enjoy your month see you in september thank you bye you