Overview
  • Overview
  • Increasing Housing Supply
  • Dedicated Funding Sources
  • Land Use Regulation and Approval Reforms
  • Inclusionary Zoning
  • Regional Housing Target Enforcement
  • Ending and Preventing Homelessness
  • Systems-Level Racial Equity Analysis
  • Emergency Response Resources
  • Housing First
  • Master Leasing
  • Household and Community Protections
  • “Just Cause” Eviction Laws
  • Anti-Gouging Rent Regulations
  • Strategic Code Enforcement
  • Community Benefit Agreements
  • Community Power-Building
  • Community Ownership
  • Alliance and Coalition Building
  • Community Organizing
  • Tenant Organizing
  • Opportunity and Wealth
  • Mobility Assistance Programs
  • Rent Reporting
  • Reparations
  • Fair and Equitable Appraisals
  • Acknowledgments
    • Systems-Level Racial Equity Analysis

    Overview

    Acknowledging the role that systemic racism plays in creating the disparities in homelessness today is only the first step to preventing and ending homelessness in the US. A housing justice approach also requires responses to homelessness to account for differences in risk factors, pathways, and outcomes relating to homelessness across racial and ethnic groups. Systems-level analysis—with a racial equity lens and with input from people with lived experience in homelessness—is an important tool that can allow communities to determine where there are gaps in serving historically marginalized populations using homelessness management information system data.

    As the anchor institutions for a community’s homelessness response system, continuums of care (CoCs) can use new and existing tools, such as the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s CoC Racial Equity Analysis Tool, to better gauge which groups are at increased risk of experiencing homelessness. Communities can identify racial disparities by comparing demographic data around homelessness interactions and outcomes. This process can reveal biases in the system and establish a shared understanding among local stakeholders as they assess policies and practices that perpetuate inequities.

    Examples of This Strategy in Action

    • The “Centering Racial Equity in Homelessness System Design” (CRE) 2020 report was the result of a partnership between the Oakland-Berkeley-Alameda County, California, Continuum of Care and Abt Associates to restructure the homelessness system to better respond to all residents’ needs. The Racial Equity Impact Analysis found that, in addition to Black and Indigenous people being excluded from the housing market due to affordability and other structural barriers, housing programs have also contributed to the displacement of these groups from their communities. That’s because, as a result of the lack of affordable housing in Alameda County, programs providing homelessness resources disproportionately relocate Black and Indigenous populations to outside the county. The report recommended the county provide housing for people experiencing homelessness throughout the county to mitigate the displacement of communities of color and allow them to exercise agency in deciding where to live.

      The CRE report continues to inform efforts to end homelessness in Alameda County. For example, the Home Together 2026 Community Plan builds on the findings of the CRE, detailing next steps for implementing recommendations from the report, and was approved by the Alameda County Board of Supervisors in May 2022. The County called for $2.5 billion in funding over the five years of the initiative, which would provide additional resources to address racial inequities in the homelessness system.

    • Charlotte-Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, is one of over 100 communities committed to measurably ending homelessness as part of the Built for Zero movement. The movement aims to achieve functional zero for several populations, which means there are never more people experiencing homelessness than people who are exiting to permanent housing during a given period. According to local data, 79 percent of people experiencing homelessness in Mecklenburg County are Black, compared with 31 percent in the county’s general population. The county’s CoC has set out to correct this disparity, first forming an Equity and Inclusion Committee with representation from people with lived expertise and conducting an equity assessment in partnership with C4 Innovations.

      The county also examined how its prioritization and assessment tool, the VI-SPDAT, affected homelessness equity outcomes and developed a new tool with additional supplemental questions to reduce bias. The committee planned to collect data for six months before conducting a more thorough analysis of the tool, although it reports that the tool has increased equitable outcomes thus far.

     

     

    Next intervention: Emergency Response Resources