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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 11, 2015)
November 11, 2015 The Skanner Page 9 News Seattle NAACP Demands Equity Lens in City’s Homeless Crisis Blacks make up more than 20 percent of the city’s houseless, but 7 percent of its population as a whole Donovan M. Smith Of The Skanner News D espite African Americans ac- counting for about 7 percent of the Se- attle’s total population, they make up an over- whelming portion of its homeless population — more than 20 percent. Earlier this month, Mayor Ed Murray and King County Executive Director Dow Constan- tine declared states of emergency for their re- spective homeless crises, pledging over $7 million in joint emergency fund- ing to combat the prob- lem. Now, local leadership is urging the both the city and county to add a spe- “ partment for response to the group’s demands. Lester responded in part by saying that both she and the mayor’s of- fi ce acknowledge the racial disproportions in “a variety of data sets” including homelessness. “It goes without saying that addressing racial d i s p ro p o r t i o n a l i t i e s goes in everything that we do, and really trying to fi gure out how to be results-driven, in a way that also has a measur- able impact on reducing racial disparities -- and that’s very much our in- tention in this State of Emergency,” Lester said. Lester added that the city will be working to address root causes of homelessness as they al- This is a [majority] White city, Seattle, with a very high Black population of home- lessness cifi c racial lens to gov- ernment dollars moving forward. Just days aft er Murray and Constantine’s Nov. 2 declaration, the Seat- tle-King County chapter of the NAACP sent out a media release, urging elected offi cials to im- plement a racial equity lens to the emergency funding to address its ex- treme African American homelessness. “It’s comfortable to deal with terms like ‘commu- nities of color,’ but for this particular crisis, it’s important that we do it under a specifi c racial lens,” said King County NAACP chair of econom- ic development Dr. She- ley Secrest. “This is a [majority] White city, Seattle, with a very high Black popu- lation of homelessness. So if we’re really going to talk about addressing it and fi nding solutions for these people and fam- ilies, we have to do it un- der a direct racial lens,” Secrest told The Skanner. The Seattle-King Coun- ty NAACP is urging that parts of the emergency funding be used to ad- dress three issues they say combat root causes of chronic homelessness amongst African Ameri- cans: the end of landlord discrimination, beefed- up Ban the Box protec- tions and living-wage job creation with targeted hiring in the Black com- munity. The Skanner News spoke with Catherine Lester, director of the Se- attle Human Services De- locate their funding. The program enlisted a host of housing experts from various organiza- tions, elected offi cials from the city and coun- ty, and aft er millions of dollars spent, saw an in- crease in the number of low-cost units built in the booming Emerald City. But by the time 2015 came around, the num- ber of one-night counts for people experiencing homeless had dramat- ically increased from close to 8,000 to more than 9,000 at the start of the year. In 2014, Seattle was named both the fast- est-growing city in the nation and the U.S. city with the fourth-worst homelessness problem. According a report re- leased by the National Al- liance to End Homeless- ness this year, in which they analyzed housing trends between 2013 and 2014, more than 30 states had seen a decrease in the issue overall. Other data by that group say the average homeless person is a middle-aged African American man. The Institute for Children, Poverty, and Homelessness off ered that include economic self-suffi ciency, insti- tutionalized discrimi- nation, multi-genera- tional poverty amongst other historic barriers are some of why Blacks are overrepresented amongst the nation’s homeless, in a report they released three years ago. “These social exclu- sions leave Blacks more likely to have smaller fi nancial reserves to fall back on in emergen- cy situations; reside in poor, segregated, and un- safe neighborhoods that lack community resourc- es; and experience home- lessness,” the report said. Lester said that what Seattle King-County NAACP is calling for is an issue within the scope of the city and county’s crisis, the dollars are fi rst and foremost intended for its most vulnerable populations. “I want to acknowledge that this State of Emer- gency is intended to ad- dress the needs of those who are unsheltered tonight, who are living on the streets, under a bridge, or in a car and that we have to continue to push forward invest- ing into what works,” Lester said. Given that home- lessness has long been disproportionate in the Black community, Secrest says funding or- ganizations that have worked with these pop- ulations at length would be most eff ective use of these emergency monies. “Because this has been aff ecting our communi- ty for so long, we know solutions and folks that can make sure those much needed dollars reach the people who actually need it,” Secrest said.
