Homelessness Research: Race and Homelessness

A Report on how "historical racist land use planning contributed to racial segregation and inequity for people of color in Portland."

"Using census data, oral histories, archival documents, and newspaper accounts, this study analyzes residential segregation and neighborhood disinvestment over a 60‐year period."

Map of Portland, OR Neighborhoods in 1940 illustrating Redlining.

A Report from the Center for American Progress on Systematic Racism in United States Housing.

A Report from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

A Report from the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

A Report from the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

"For a quarter century, the federal government provided funding for cities large and small to raze 'blighted' or 'slum' neighborhoods. Though improved housing opportunities was the ostensible goal, over time, cities used federal funds to stimulate commercial and industrial redevelopment. Through these programs, cities displaced hundreds of thousands of families from their homes and neighborhoods. Renewing Inequality visualizes those displacements and urban renewal more generally."

A Racial Equity Tool from the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

"These action steps include short- and longer-term strategies to address disparities that CoCs have identified using their HMIS or other data. There are steps for each of the four key areas. The action steps are not exhaustive, but provide some ideas for how to begin plans on improving equity in your system."

An FAQ regarding COVID-19 and communities of color.

"From this collection of qualitative data, various important themes have begun to emerge. They focus on disparate experiences of housing affordability and quality, economic mobility, criminal justice, behavioral health, and family stabilization. These are all factors that can lead to high rates of homelessness for communities of color, and also reinforce high barriers to exit from homelessness. The Phase One Report documents each of these areas in detail, and offers a cross-cutting analysis that focuses on 'Network Impoverishment,' a phenomenon in which it is not only the individual or family, but the entire network, that lacks the economic and social capital necessary to prevent and end homelessness."

This study aims to "understand the relationship between race and the experience of homelessness for older adults."