The Racialized Problem of Homelessness and its Impact on Black Youth
In their chapter “Seeing Our Most Vulnerable Homeless Students: The Impact of Systemic Racism on the Education of Black Homeless Youth in the United States,” authors Dr. Earl J. Edwards and Dr. Pedro Noguera seek to rectify the ways in which the racial dynamics of homelessness have been overlooked in social policy and research on homelessness, youth development, and education. Since 1980, black people have made up around 40 percent of the homeless population, yet they are only 12.5 percent of the total American population. Despite the disproportionate impact of homelessness on black Americans, scholarship and society tend to ignore how homelessness is intertwined with systemic racism.
This racialized component of examining homelessness demonstrates how the indifference and political hostility toward the plight of homeless people is inextricably linked with who the problem disproportionately affects as well as the many issues with accepting homelessness as a normal or inevitable feature of American society. Individual racists can play a role, but the big driver and machinations we must overcome are systemic. Additionally, there is not one system but many, an intertwined complex collection including housing discrimination, health care discrimination, and judicial inequity.
The issue begins with the fact that it is harder for black people to find, finance, and keep safe housing. For African Americans, it is harder to buy a house and get a home loan. This discriminatory treatment was even more blatant in the past, so fewer black families have generational wealth and own their homes. In addition, there is discrimination in where black people are allowed to buy homes and live as well as social pressure to stay out of “white” neighborhoods. Black Americans who want to buy homes have to consider where they will be safe to live and whether they will face being harassed or even killed for being black in a space that is perceived as being exclusively for white people.
For those who rent, there is another set of challenges. There is bias in who is rented to and eviction disparities. Low-income residents are more likely to be evicted, and poverty disproportionately impacts black people. Additionally, once you have been evicted, finding a new rental property that will rent to you is extremely difficult. Employment discrimination and income disparities also mean renting or saving to buy a home is more difficult. When rent takes up a larger proportion of your monthly paycheck, saving is made harder, and without significant savings, many people are stuck in the prejudiced rental market for their whole lives.
Difficulties finding and maintaining safe housing have significant impacts on black youth. It compounds the problems of racism that already exist within the foster care and educational systems. The uncertainty and instability of homelessness lead to many academic and psychological effects. Only 64 percent of youth experiencing homelessness graduate on time, and there are significant negative outcomes for people without high school diplomas. They must contend with poor job prospects, worse mental health, increased contact with penal systems, and greater reliance on welfare programs. Homelessness is also associated with long-term damage, including physical harm, emotional impairment, social deterioration, and educational deficits.
It is very hard to break this cycle once you are in it due to systemic injustice; everything builds and compounds on itself. Systemic racism accounts for the cumulative effects of interactions between macro-level systems, social forces, and institutions. Using it as a lens, we can see why homelessness disproportionately impacts black youth and why this has such a large role in maintaining racial disparities and inequity. This racialized aspect needs to be seen and directly addressed, or the problem will never be solved at the root. In the short term, we can do better to mitigate the effects on children and better support black youth experiencing homelessness. In the long term, we need to address systemic racism in all its forms to better future generations’ lives and outcomes.
About the Author
Stella Hudson is a Graduate Assistant with the Baha’i Chair for World Peace. She graduated from the College of William and Mary in 2021 with a B.A. in English. She is attending the University of Maryland and pursuing a Master’s of Library and Information Science.