Sadly rooted in structural racism, the findings from the latest study by The Center of Social Innovations (C4) show a drastic disparity between minorities and their white counterparts when it came to poverty and homelessness.
“You look around with your own eyes in any community across the country and see massive numbers of people of color in the homelessness population, whether it’s in a shelter or the street”, says C4’s chief executive officer, Jeff Olivet.
It begs the question – why are there so many minorities in the homeless population?
Six counties were measured in C4’s study, including Pierce County, and the results were found to be “shocking, but not surprising.”
Matt Driscoll writes about the study in The News Tribune, noting how the deep inequalities of homelessness between minorities and whites is not an accident. Another timely article referring to the study was published this week in The Boston Globe, titled “Homelessness is like lots of issues: Racism makes it worse – Renee Graham,” which goes a bit further to explain that the result of these findings is due to excluding historically oppressed people from equal access to housing, healthcare, education, and employment opportunities.
