The Color of Homelessness: The Causes, Reproduction, and Consequences of Racial Inequality in Homelessness

Abstract

People of color or mixed race account for more than half of all people experiencing homelessness, yet comprise less than a quarter of the total population in the United States. Despite these massive racial disparities, there is a lack of research examining the intersection between race and homelessness. In this dissertation, I conduct three studies that each answer a crucial question regarding racial inequality in homelessness: 1) what causes it? 2) what reproduces it? and 3) what are its consequences? In the first study, I conduct a literature review of historical and contemporary research to show that three primary systems of stratification drive racial disparities in homelessness: racial economic inequality, housing discrimination and residential segregation, and the homeless response system. In doing so, I recast homelessness as a deeply racialized form of inequality that has existed at least since White settlers colonized North America and established the institution of slavery. In the second study, I draw on an original survey (n=410), administrative data (n=7,140), and in-depth interviews (n=25) to reveal that low-income tenants faced a 179% increase in the odds of experiencing an informal eviction tactic during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Black and Hispanic/Latinx movers were also significantly more likely to experience a forced move than White movers during the pandemic. In the third study, I construct a novel dataset of homeless deaths across 23 major U.S. counties (n=16,874) to demonstrate that people experiencing homelessness are, on average, 3.1-7.2 times more likely to die than the general population. Among people of color, “natural” deaths from preventable conditions such as cardiovascular disease, respiratory illness, and exposure to environmental conditions are significant contributors to this rise in mortality, in addition to “deaths of despair.” I estimate a total of 276 excess deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic, only 15.6% of which were due to COVID-19. Together, these studies provide novel insight into the extent to which racial inequality in homelessness is an outcome of inequities produced by social institutions and public policies, a factor in reproducing downward intergenerational mobility, and a driver of premature death among households of color.