OUR Principles

Decades of Federal and State policy choices have created the conditions that got us to the current unhoused crisis. Most minority groups, especially African Americans and Indigenous people, experience homelessness at higher rates than Whites, largely due to long-standing historical and structural racism. Other policies that have set the stage for our current housing crisis: 

• Stagnant incomes and rising housing prices - Poverty is a strong predictor of homelessness. Black and Latinx groups are overrepresented in poverty relative to their representation in the overall population

• Declining investment in affordable housing - Since 2011, CA cut redevelopment from $1 billion to zero.

• Structural and systemic racism - Black people are overrepresented in the homeless population nationwide. The groundbreaking 2018 report by LAHSA’s Ad Hoc Committee on Black People Experiencing Homelessness noted that while Black people represented only 9% of the County’s general population in 2017, they comprised 40% of the homeless population.

• Under investment in healthcare and mental health - People of color are far more likely to lack health insurance. The lack of health insurance for people with chronic medical conditions and/or untreated serious mental illness can place them at risk of becoming homeless or being precariously housed.

• Lack of tenant protections and discriminatory land use - Redlining – systemic housing discrimination supported by the federal government decades ago –  is a root cause of the current wealth gap between White households and households of Color. Redlining discouraged economic investment, such as mortgage and business loans, in Black and Brown neighborhoods. Ellis Act and Costa-Hawkins Act also contribute to no cause evictions of vulnerable renters. 

• Mass incarceration and a punitive criminal justice system - Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) found that 60% of LA's homeless have been cycled through the system.