CITY OF NEWBURGH — Federal lawmakers on Wednesday called for the U.S. Census Bureau to make a greater effort to count Newburgh residents in the 2020 census.

U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, and U.S. Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand wrote a letter to Director Steven Dillingham asking the bureau to establish a Questionnaire Assistance Center, hold a local jobs fair to recruit census workers and collaborate with the City of Newburgh to maximize participation in the count.

An accurate count is critical for communities to receive federal resources and proper representation in Congress, the lawmakers said in a news release.

"That's why today we are launching a three-pronged push to ensure that each and every resident of Newburgh is counted in the 2020 census," Schumer said in the release. "With the very first Internet-based decennial census set to go live in less than a year, the time to prepare and mobilize to reverse Newburgh's trend of low response is already upon us."

Only about 57 percent of the people across three census tracts in the city returned census questionnaires by mail in 2010, according to a map created by the City University of New York (CUNY).

Newburgh, the most populous city in Orange County, had one of the lowest response rates by mail in the county.

The tract with the lowest mail-in response rate in the county, 54.5 percent, was in the area of Greenwood Lake, which has significantly fewer people covering a larger geographic area.

The low mail-in response rate in Newburgh required more costly and difficult in-person follow-up to attempt to count the remaining 43 percent, making it one of the most difficult areas to count in the country, according to the CUNY map.

"This count impacts everything from better roads to seats in Head Start and money for kids to go to college," Maloney said. "If we don't do this right, Newburgh will be cheated out of resources it needs and deserves for yet another decade."

lbellamy@th-record.com