In honor of Black History Month, Mustard Seed Project would like to highlight the various racial disparities in homelessness. Black communities have disproportionately worse outcomes in relation to housing as a result of institutional racism, with obsolete systems from decades ago still affecting us today. Dating back to as far as slavery, racial inequity has led to disproportional rates of poverty among Black Americans, with deep poverty rates as high as 10.8% today (1). As poverty has been a longstanding predictor of homelessness, it comes as no surprise that, though only representing 13% of the general population, Black Americans make up 40% of people experiencing homelessness and over 50% of homeless families with children (1).

Black Americans live in systems that function to maintain this poverty, with redlining and rental housing discrimination as lingering effects of segregation, with incarceration plaguing the Black community, and with lack of access to affordable quality healthcare. First, redlining keeps Black Americans in areas concentrated with poverty and lack of access to quality services and programs, and rental housing discrimination furthers this concentration as Black Americans are denied more leases, shown less units, and paid higher rent and deposit fees than their White counterparts (1). Additionally, in our Community Forum on February 23rd, we discuss the prison-to-homelessness pipeline and how incarceration can serve to function as a vehicle to homelessness once released from prison. There are significant problems individuals face in accessing safe and affordable housing upon exiting prison. With the overcriminalization of Black communities leading to Black Americans being incarcerated at six times the rate of their White counterparts (1), this leads to even more Black Americans being funneled into homelessness. Lastly, lack of access to healthcare to those with mental illness and/or chronic medical conditions can put those individuals at serious risk of homelessness. Around 20% of the homeless population remains chronically homeless due to mental illness and behavioral health issues (1), and medical debt is one of the leading causes of bankruptcies (2), further funneling Black Americans into homelessness.

COVID-19 only serves to highlight these racial disparities. Homeless individuals are at higher risk of exposure to COVID-19, and if infected, they are twice as likely to be hospitalized, two to four times as likely to need critical care, and two to three times more likely to die (3). In addition to racial inequity already present, COVID-19 has brought upon the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression (4). Black communities are less likely to have emergency funds in place in case their income is interrupted, leading to greater displacements of Black Americans from their homes during this pandemic. Additionally, the lack of access to healthcare not only funnels Black communities into homelessness, but has also been demonstrated to lead to worse outcomes for Black Americans infected with COVID-19. In Chicago, though only accounting for 29% of the general populations. Black Americans accounted for 60% of the deaths due to COVID-19 as of April 2020 (3).

This Black History Month, we at Mustard Seed Project reflect on how racial inequality perpetuates homelessness and the work we do every day. These few words cannot encompass the depths of racism in our society today. We invite you to reflect and do the same.

Please note our sources:

(1) https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/what-causes-homelessness/inequality/

(2) https://pnhp.org/news/illness-medical-bills-linked-to-nearly-two-thirds-of-bankruptcies-harvard-study/

(3) https://nlchp.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Racism-Homelessness-and-COVID-19-Fact-Sheet-_Final_2.pdf

(4) https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/11/unemployment-rose-higher-in-three-months-of-covid-19-than-it-did-in-two-years-of-the-great-recession/