Does Race Matter in Addressing Homelessness? A Review of the Literature

• Date: 01 June 2016
• Author: Marian Moser Jones
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wmh3.189
• Published date: 01 June 2016

Does Race Matter in Addressing Homelessness?

A Review of the Literature

Marian Moser Jones

Since the 1980s, black persons have been overrepresented in the United States homeless population.

Given that morbidity and mortality is elevated among both the black population and the homeless

population in comparison to the general U.S. population, this overrepresentation has important

implications for health policy. However, the racial demographics of homelessness have received little

attention from policymakers. This article reviews published social and behavioral science literature

that addresses the relationship between race and contemporary homelessness in the United States.

This literature points to substantial differences between racial subgroups of the U.S. homeless

population in vulnerabilities, health risks, behaviors, and service outcomes. Such observed differences

suggest that policies and programs to prevent and end homelessness must explicitly consider race

as a factor in order to be of maximum effectiveness. The limited scope of these f‌indings also suggests

that more research is needed to better understand these differences and their implications.

KEY WORDS: race, homelessness, poverty

Introduction

In 1985, a groundbreaking study of homelessness in Ohio revealed that black

persons

1

were signif‌icantly overrepresented in this group (Roth, 1985). This study,

the f‌irst ever systematic survey of homelessness to be conducted across an entire

state since the Great Depression, provided empirical support for ethnographers’

earlier observations that profound demographic shifts were occurring in the

United States’ homeless population (Baxter & Hopper, 1981). A dwindling cluster

consisting primarily of “older white men, who were uneducated and ensnared in

alcoholism” (Bachrach, 1984; Hodnicki, 1990, p. 59) was giving way to a new,

younger, more racially diverse population of homeless men and women (Baxter

& Hopper, 1981). Other research also supported the f‌inding that black persons

were overrepresented in the entire U.S. homeless population, over and above the

disproportionate percentage of these persons living in poverty (Burt & Cohen,

1989; Farr, Koegel, & Burnham, 1986).

Thirty years later, black persons remain substantially overrepresented in

the U.S. homeless population, comprising roughly 40.4 percent of the total U.S.

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homeless population, but only 12.5 percent of the overall population (United

States Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2015; hereafter HUD).

Black persons also made up 48.7 percent of homeless persons in families,

according to HUD’s 2015 Point-in-Time (PIT) estimates of homelessness (HUD,

2015). An analysis of 2010 data indicated that members of black families were

seven times as likely as members of white families to spend time in a homeless

shelter (Institute for Children, Poverty, and Homelessness, 2012). Hispanic

persons, in contrast, are underrepresented in the homeless population, despite

having poverty rates comparable to black persons (Krogstad, 2014).

The enduring overrepresentation of black persons in the U.S. homeless

population has serious implications for population health and health disparities.

Homeless populations have age-adjusted mortality rates double to triple that of

the general population (Barrow, Herman, Cordova, & Streuning, 1999; Hibbs

et al., 1994), are at elevated risk of premature death even in comparison to other

low-income populations, and suffer disproportionately from a variety of chronic

health conditions (O’Connell, 2005). Additionally, the U.S. black population still

has an average life expectancy of 3.8 years less than the white population, with

higher death rates than the white population for leading causes of death

including heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and homicide (Kochanek, Arias, &

Anderson, 2013; Williams & Mohammed, 2009). The black homeless population

thus likely faces a double dose of vulnerability.

The racial demography of homelessness and its potential implications have

received little attention from policymakers. In 2010, the U.S. Interagency Council

on Homelessness (USICH) released Opening Doors, the federal government’s f‌irst

comprehensive strategic plan to prevent and end homelessness (USICH, 2010).

While the plan acknowledged that people face “vulnerabilities associated with

race and gender” as well as other factors (USICH, 2010, p. 44), none of its

objectives, strategies, or updates explicitly addressed how racial dynamics in

homelessness might affect its efforts (USICH, 2010, 2015). Similarly, the National

Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH), a leading nongovernmental organization,

has not once mentioned race or racial discrimination in recent editions of its

widely distributed yearly report, The State of Homelessness in America (NAEH,

2011, 2012, 2013, 2014). While the 2015 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report

to Congress (AHAR), released in November 2015 by HUD, does include data on

the proportions of the homeless population belonging to black, Hispanic, and

white racial/ethnic groups, it remains to be seen whether policy organizations

will analyze this data.

A colorblind approach to addressing homelessness would be justif‌ied if the

risk and protective factors related to homelessness, the pathways into homeless-

ness, and outcomes of services and programs to address homelessness did not

differ from one racial group to another. “Race” is only a socio- historical category

and is not a means for explaining biological differences between groups (Smedley

& Smedley, 2005), and racial discrimination in housing, employment, education,

voting, and public accommodations has been illegal in the United States for

over 50 years (The Leadership Conference, 2009). Some policymakers might,

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