We Need to Talk about Race - the Homeless Response System Community Dashboard Race Addendum

Today, we are fulfilling an important action item on our Continuum of Care Strategic Work Plan, to “track and report race and ethnicity data within all CoC reporting tools and as an addendum to the CoC Quarterly Homeless Response System Community Dashboard” (Goal VII, Action Item 2).

Goal VII: Address Racial Disparities in Homelessness and Service Delivery was included in the plan, due to our commitment to tackle the overrepresentation of African Americans in the homeless population. We began this effort in the aftermath of the July 7, 2016 tragedy, with the help of a $32,700 grant from United Way of Metropolitan Dallas’ Unite Dallas Relief Fund. Partnering with other cities across the country, we joined a new research and action program from the Center for Social Innovation (C4) titled “Racism and Homelessness – Addressing Inequity in 10 American Cities”, which is part of C4’s SPARC (Supporting Partnerships for Anti-Racist Communities) effort.

 
The MDHA Homeless Response System Community Dashboard Race Addendum, highlights the above mentioned overrepresentation, and zeros in on three specific groups, veterans, emergency shelter (ES) guests and permanent supportive housing (PSH) residents. In all three groups, it includes overall percentages. With regards to veterans, it highlights percentages of those housed and those newly coming into the system. With regards to emergency shelter (ES) guests and permanent supportive housing (PSH) residents, it highlights positive exits to permanent housing (PH), as well as negative exits.
 

 
As with the MDHA Homeless Response System Community Dashboard last released, it includes a Housing Priority List (HPL) tracker. This HPL tracker, however, is broken down specifically by race. This provides a visually arresting display of the overrepresentation of African Americans in the homeless population, over the course of the last twelve months. As Lester R. Collins, Jr., our Continuum of Care Performance Analyst points out, when viewed in tandem, with the standard HPL tracker, what stands out is how little difference one sees. With the overrepresentation of African Americans in the homeless population being so high, this is not surprising.
 

 
This coming February, MDHA will participate in SPARC’s 2018 Racial Equity and Homelessness Summit: Redesign with Racial Equity, in Seattle, Washington, underwritten by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Raikes Foundation. Attending on our behalf are Cindy J. Crain, MDHA President and CEO, Shanette Eaden, City of Plano Housing and Community Services Manager and MDHA board member, David S. Gruber, MDHA Development and Communications Director, Larry James, CitySquare CEO, and Rev. Dr. Michael W. Waters, founder and Senior Pastor of Joy Tabernacle African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church. This summit will bring together SPARC communities, national and local leaders, and philanthropic partners for an in-depth conversation about how to center racial equity within homelessness prevention and response systems. We look forward to sharing these innovative tools, highlighted here today, with summit attendees.