CommentsGUEST WORDS--I had the privilege of attending the release and presentation of the 2017 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count. And I can tell you that I am not surprised by the 23% increase in homelessness in Los Angeles County. Homelessness is visible now more than ever and in places that one would not envision.
Unlike some, I am particularly laser focused on the increase of homelessness among people of color, particularly African Americans. As an African American female and from a community that is predominantly African American, I am floored and appalled at the constant rise in African American homelessness; and the lack thereof to create a race-based approach to resolving the issue.
Quoting Albert Einstein, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and expecting different results.” According to the count, 39% of Los Angeles County’s homeless are Africans Americans. This means that African Americans are disproportionately represented in a county that has an African American population of roughly 8%. To see that there is a 28% increase from 2016 to 2017 speaks volumes to the lack of truly addressing the disparities that African Americans confront to pull up and out of homelessness.
Ending homelessness is not a one size fit all approach. This is something that has been spewed for decades now without any real movement to make formidable changes. As philanthropy and other social movements are pivoting towards racial equity, it is unimaginable and unconscionable not to try to address the social, institutional, and systemic problems that are keeping African Americans, my people, in a cycle of homelessness and poverty.
The racial equity lens overlooked African American homelessness in 2016 after the results revealed an out of portion number of homeless African Americans. Homeless women took priority and got a response instead. Commissioner Wendy Gruel of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority called for an Ad Hoc Committee on Women and Homelessness. This Ad Hoc Committee is still active. Why not call for an Ad Hoc Committee on African American homelessness?
The facts have not changed that Africans Americans face continued marginalization and disparities in education, employment, housing, family stability, and food security. This information has been dangled in front of us from the “Homelessness In South Los Angeles” position paper by Los Angeles City Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson’s Office to the 2017 “Ready to Work, Uprooting Inequity: Black Workers in Los Angeles County” report. In addition to these that detail factors of African American homelessness, I would add something else, gentrification!
It’s time to plan and write a new narrative because systems and policies are broken. A new fix and a new way to address the problem with sincerity and urgency is needed. Most importantly, the solutions have to come from ground zero and not a bubble.
The call to end homelessness for everyone is now! If African American homelessness, a large segment of the homeless population, continues to be ignored and remains overrepresented, will homeless Black lives matter?
(Janet Denise Kelly, MBA is Founder and Executive Director of The Sanctuary of Hope. Janet is an occasional contributor to CityWatch.)
-cw
