Robert Groves, U.S. Census Bureau director, said widespread housing foreclosures have displaced many people, making them harder and more expensive to count. Increased immigration has heightened the challenge of reaching people in their own language and assuring them of the census' importance and safety. At the same time, the recession has prompted major reductions in state and local funding for census outreach, Groves said at breakfast meeting. California has cut back its census funding to $2 million from $24.7 million a decade earlier, for instance, while a Pew Charitable Trusts study released this week found that Los Angeles city funding has plunged by half. But the census director outlined several new initiatives to combat the problems as officials prepare to launch the count in April. They include a fivefold increase in local outreach staff, financed by an overall federal funding hike to $14.7 billion from $6.2 billion a decade earlier. In addition, foundations have kicked in census funds, including the California Endowment and California Community Foundation. Census officials also plan an extensive effort to reach out to immigrants and minorities, who traditionally have been undercounted. A University of California, Los Angeles study estimated that the 2000 census' undercount rate in Los Angeles County was five times higher in black and Latino neighborhoods than in white areas. To help address those problems, the 2010 census will debut a Spanish-English language ballot for more than 13 million households, along with census forms in six languages and advertising in 59 languages. The census design itself should also promote better response, Groves said. The bureau has jettisoned the long form and will send out the short questionnaire only, which yields response rates of 8 percent to 10 percent higher, he said. A replacement form will be mailed to households that do not respond the first time. 'Will it work? We don't know,' Groves said. 'The frightening thing about the census is you only ... have one shot every 10 years. Both political representation and billions in federal funding are at stake in the decennial count. More than $300 billion in federal funds for more than 170 programs are apportioned based on population, as determined by the census. Each person missed results in the loss of $12,000 in federal funds over a decade, according to some estimates. Congressional and state legislative seats are also reallocated according to census population counts. Some forecasters predict California could lose a House seat for the first time in history after the 2010 count. And a proposal by two Republican lawmakers to add a question about citizenship and legal status to the short form could produce a loss of as many as five California seats, according to one Republican estimate. The Senate is expected to vote this week on the amendment, which would bar illegal immigrant populations from being used for apportionment. Groves would not predict whether the census' new design features would address the looming problems adequately. 'We are just working 24/7 to make it the best census,' he said. 