By Mark Ridley-Thomas, PhD and Alisa Orduna, PhD
Homelessness among Black Americans is a complex issue intertwined with historical, social, and economic factors that have disproportionately affected our community. W.E.B. DuBois first documented Black people experiencing homelessness in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War noting the inflow of newly freed persons who lacked housing and other resources of their own – “a horde of starving vagabonds, homeless, helpless, and pitiable, in their dark distress.” Even at that time, government representatives questioned their role in providing food and shelter for the newly freed. This question of caring for Black folks with equitable resources needed to thrive, sits at the crux of public policies that have denied the Black Americans full access to housing, fair-wage employment, quality healthcare, and education, major social determinants of health, since Emancipation from Slavery. This history of systemic racism and discrimination in the United States has had a lasting impact on Black communities today. Despite incremental progress, Black Americans are still shackled by the legacies of policies such as slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, segregation, racial covenants on private properties, and discriminatory lending practices that have limited economic opportunities and access to quality housing for individuals and families.
Blacks have remained considerably overrepresented among the homeless population in most every US city despite being approximately 13% of the US population. Nearly 4 of every 10 individuals experiencing homelessness in the United States identified as Black, African American or African. Of the 243,624 Black people experiencing homelessness, 50% of them were members of families with children that will ultimately result in persistent generational disparities. Despite tremendous efforts to intervene and inoculate the crisis from worsening, it has, as the largest metropolitan cities New York City, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Detroit, Chicago, Houston, and New Orleans have overrepresentation of Black people experiencing homelessness. For example, of the 74,518 people experiencing homelessness in the County of Los Angeles 22,606 are Black people. This national data reflects a key finding from the Los Angeles Ad Hoc Committee on Black People Experiencing Homelessness which stated that homelessness experienced by Black people is a by product of systemic racism and yet another example of structural violence.
As we consider the intersection of systemic racism and structural violence, careful attention must be given to local governments’ response to the public outcry that often leads to legislation that criminalizes homelessness, contributing to the misplaced role of law enforcement agencies in addressing and often exasperating the homeless crisis engulfing Black communities across America. While local police have a public safety role in dealing with homelessness, it is simply flawed public policy and imprudent use of public funds to place such entities at the forefront of this national crises.
In this moment in history when Black mayors are leading the largest metropolitan cities and a Black woman is leading the Department of Housing and Urban Development, it is our time to address the over representation of Black people experiencing homelessness in this country. To address homelessness in Black America we must dismantle its root cause of systemic racism and discrimination that influences economic stability, affordable housing, health, behavioral health, public safety and social support systems. This requires a collaborative, comprehensive, and intersectional approach that involves government agencies federal/state/local alignment, health and housing sectors, faith-based organizations, non-profit organizations, communities, and individuals.
We must support access to quality, affordable housing to stem the inflow of people falling into homelessness, and quickly rehouse those experiencing it today. Shelters and interim housing are great emergency response strategies, however, they are not permanent solutions. To accomplish the goal of an increase in housing, communities must come together and overcome “not in my back yard” defenses and demand that we increase investment in affordable housing to end the nation’s homelessness crisis. For far too long public policy and housing programs, influenced by racist attitudes and beliefs, have excluded far too many Black households from an opportunity to achieve the stability promised in the “American Dream.” Housing is a basic human right. Housing is needed for our complete spiritual, emotional, physical, relational, and moral well-being. Now is our time to demand more.
Let this be the call to action for all; there is a need to:
– Urgently address the basic needs of people in crisis with wrap-around services (e.g., access to mental health and substance use services, job training, family reunification);
– Build better systems to prevent people from losing their homes in the first place;
– Expand the supply of and access to affordable housing and high-quality supportive services;
– Rely on data and evidence that show what works including housing-first, trauma-informed, and harm reduction approaches;
– Include people who have experienced homelessness in the policymaking process to dismantle systems that create disparities; and
– Summon a cadre of leadership at all levels of the public and private sectors, to prevent Black people from becoming homelessness and reduce the number of Black people experiencing homelessness by 50% by 2035.
With hope in our hearts and minds, let us also call for a national gathering on Black people experiencing homelessness to educate, share best-practices, design culturally competent responses, and develop a national agenda to end this crisis.
“Hope is not blind optimism. It’s not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It’s not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight.
Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it. Hope is the belief that destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by the men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.”
– 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama
Note: This is part two of a two-part series (Excerpted from the Covenant with Black America, 20th Edition by Tavis Smiley)
Mark Ridley-Thomas, PhD held elected office in California at the state and local levels for three decades. He is the author of Measure H, the unprecedented countywide ballot measure that passed in Los Angeles. Dr. Ridley-Thomas serves as Senior Advisor for the Institute for Nonviolence in LA and he currently publishes PRAXIS—the interface between reflection and action—a weekly newsletter that focuses exclusively on homelessness and housing insecurity.
Alisa Orduna, PhD is a depth-psychologist researcher, community engagement facilitator, and writer dedicated to addressing the national racial reckoning and homelessness crisis through the development of community healing modalities that expose anti-Black racism and foster cultures of belonging. A 25-year veteran of public and nonprofit sector leadership, Dr. Orduna leads homeless advocacy and group facilitation for the Institute for Non-violence in LA.