Yesterday in Dallas, I visited the Brady Center. The Center is operated by Catholic Charities and serves older residents in the area. When I arrived, the basement of the Center was filled with about 100 folks who had just finished a bingo game. It was a little before lunchtime, and a group of census staff and I provided a short description of the census. Given the large number of Spanish-speaking clients, I got help in translating my remarks about the importance, simplicity and safety of the decennial census. When I explained that the law protecting census data is so strong that I can refuse even a presidential request for individual data, and that that people need not worry about their documentation status, the crowd showed great appreciation.

The Brady Center will likely be a questionnaire assistance center. These are temporary centers we set up during March and April to help people having trouble reading or filling out the questionnaire. Questionnaire assistance centers are staffed by census employees and have available the language assistance guides (in 59 languages!) and the full questionnaires in 6 different languages (English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Russian). We’re hopeful these centers will reduce the burden for some people to participate in the census.