*According to a new report, 42 percent of homeless population in Los Angeles are Black.
In the analysis conducted by the New York Times, the disparity is attributed to decades of systemic racism and discrimination.
Via New York Times:
Homelessness is Los Angeles’s defining crisis. Income inequality, a shortage of housing, failing mental health services and drug addiction all contribute to growing scenes of squalor across America’s second-largest city. The federal government recently estimated that a nearly 3 percent rise in homelessness nationwide this year was driven mostly by California.
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The publication goes on to note that:
South L.A. — once the heart of the city’s black life — is now the epicenter of housing instability for black Angelenos. It is where black residents are most at risk of falling into homelessness.
And then there’s this…
Latinos in the area do not experience homelessness at nearly the same rate as African-Americans. Experts cite a variety of reasons.
“The homelessness crisis we are living in now is the result of a housing crisis that has been in the making for decades,” said Marqueece Harris-Dawson, a City Council member who represents communities in South Los Angeles.
“It has been a vicious barrage of public and private policies and actions that have placed and will continue to place black individuals and families into a downward spiral into poverty,” said Chancela Al-Mansour, the director of a local housing advocacy group.
Meanwhile, “only 6 percent of California’s population is black, as opposed to 30 percent of its prison population,” the report states. Individuals with criminal records find it quite challenging to find jobs and housing.
“There is probably no more single significant factor than incarceration in terms of elevating somebody’s prospects of homelessness,” former Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority director Peter Lynn told the Times.
Read the full report here, and scroll up and watch the video report.
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