By 2026, communities across the country have proven it is possible to make progress on, and achieve, key indicators of a racially equitable homeless response system.
The systems responding to homelessness have not historically been designed to identify or address racial disparities. Unsurprisingly, people of color — particularly Black and Native Americans — experience disproportionately higher rates of homelessness.
This also means that people of color are at risk of experiencing worse outcomes throughout the housing process. Any system that is not set up to identify and respond to inequity is likely to reproduce — or even deepen — the problem. But it does not have to be that way.
Working with racial equity leaders, homeless services staff, and people with lived experience of homelessness, we created a framework for measuring and improving key indicators of a racially equitable homeless response system. In partnership with communities, we are developing interventions for tackling each indicator.
That framework covers four key areas:
1. Equitable system decision-making power
People of color at all levels of the homeless response system have decision-making power to influence the design of the system.
2. Lived experience
Black, Indigenous, and other people of color receiving services from the homeless response system have experiences that preserve their dignity and have their needs met in a timely manner.
3. Quality data
All people experiencing homelessness have access to assistance and are known by name in real-time. Communities accurately collect data around race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic conditions.
4. System outcomes
Communities close all racial and ethnic disproportionality in housing placements, returns to homelessness, and the average length of time experiencing homelessness, from identification to housing placement.
We have integrated the indicators of achieving equitable systems outcomes into the functional zero definition for populations. Solving homelessness cannot be separated from addressing the racial inequities within the homeless response system. In order for communities to be validated for functional zero for all populations, single adults, youth, or family homelessness, communities must close all racial and ethnic disproportionality in housing placements, returns to homelessness, and the average length of time experiencing homelessness, from identification to housing placement. These populations encompass all other subpopulations, including those experiencing veteran or chronic homelessness.
Communities in Built for Zero are at various stages of creating racially equitable homeless response systems. Over half of communities interviewed by Community Solutions’ evaluation partners, ORS and Equal Measure, described early or beginning efforts to operationalize racial equity in their work, such as hiring consultants, exploring how to diversify leadership positions or governing bodies, and developing or amending data systems to more effectively collect data related to race, ethnicity, and disproportionality.
Some communities identified racial equity as an explicit focus in their work, as evidenced by steps to adopt a racial equity framework or to amend charters or strategic plans to name specific racial equity aims and targets. For example, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the Long Island Coalition for the Homeless in New York reoriented their homeless response system to address the immediate needs of their community. As they did, leaders also began to ground their work in race equity and take note of the racial disparities produced by their system.
As Mike Giuffrida, Associate Director for the Long Island Coalition for the Homeless, explained, “I saw these conversations really start to change in tone around this time, where there was more deliberateness and intentionality about race equity, sparked by the health disparities we were seeing.”
Communities reported some successes in helping community partners adopt practices and shift mindsets to advance racial equity. Several communities used disaggregated data to identify racial disproportionalities in the populations they serve and to think about how to provide services more equitably.
In Minneapolis/Hennepin County in Minnesota, the team working on chronic homelessness measures their progress by ensuring they are achieving equitable housing outcomes.
In addition to gathering quantitative data, the team uses client satisfaction surveys to collect qualitative information from their case management program. The surveys evaluate whether each client is assigned a case manager within the same time frame and if they receive the same level of customer service.
“The surveys are sent to any person who participated in the program, and the feedback is reviewed quarterly and acted on as part of continuous improvement,” explained Danielle Werder, Area Manager of Hennepin County’s Office to End Homelessness.
Communities successfully bolstered their capacity for racial equity work by investing in training, dedicated diversity, equity, and inclusion staff, and support from consultants. Some communities were successful in diversifying leadership positions, committees, and other governing bodies, especially to include individuals with lived experience of homelessness on planning or governance committees.
The Hennepin County team includes people with lived experience of homelessness in funding, hiring, and policy decisions to improve the equity of their system from within.
“The impact has been obvious and great,” Werder said. “We can always do better and work to elevate and empower people to not just participate once, but to feel a true sense of belonging so we can work on system improvement in partnership.”
“It has changed the outcomes and the way we work. We’re prioritizing the people who matter the most by listening to the people who have actually navigated our system.”Tanesha Travis, Sacramento Steps Forward in California.
Community Solutions continues to identify levers to pull to support communities and facilitate and disseminate learning. In 2021, Community Solutions rolled out a racial equity framework with system-level indicators that communities should track over time. In 2022, the organization expanded the group of external diversity, equity, and inclusion partners and consultants in order to support communities in operationalizing the framework and embedding it in their work. This work was further bolstered by the organization’s Director of Inclusion, Equity, Diversity, and Access.
An important part of this work has included supporting communities with strategies to actively engage people with lived experience of homelessness in system decision-making and programmatic design.
“It has changed the outcomes and the way we work. We’re prioritizing the people who matter the most by listening to the people who have actually navigated our system,” said Tanesha Travis, the Lived Experience Coordinator at Sacramento Steps Forward in California.
Challenges and Learnings
In conversations with Community Solutions’ evaluation partner, communities identified wide-ranging challenges experienced in embedding equity across their work.
The framework recognizes that practitioners understand that decision-making power — which could influence key elements like governance, policies, and procedures — is essential to sustaining improvements in equitable outcomes and lived experience. This includes, but is not limited to, ensuring people with lived experience of homelessness and communities of color have power in planning, program design, and implementation.
Some communities shared that they struggle to secure the necessary commitment and action across key agencies to pursue racial equity or that leadership can struggle to shift power to marginalized groups or prioritize racial equity as a core mandate. Some of the challenges with securing or realizing those commitments are exacerbated by a sense of insufficient time and resources.