A quarter of the state’s homeless are Black, study says — experts say more affordable housing needed

More than a quarter of homeless Californians are Black, nearly four times the state’s Black population, according to a report that details the crisis of homelessness among the minority group.

The February report “Toward Equity: Understanding Black Californians’ Experiences of Homelessness” by the University of California, San Francisco, Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative lays out the systemic causes that have left so many unhoused.

Today, 26% of the state’s unhoused population is Black, while African Americans make up just 7% of the state’s population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

That number is higher in Sacramento County, where 31% of the homeless population, or roughly 2,900, are unhoused, according to the latest Point in Time report in 2022 from Sacramento Steps Forward. In Sacramento County, roughly 11% of residents identify as Black.

Decades of racism, and racist policy and practice laid the foundation for today’s crisis, said Kara Young Ponder, the report’s lead author and a director of the initiative. But many other factors are also at play, Ponder said, showing that much work is needed to bring more homeless Black Californians under roof.

“Ending homelessness among Black Californians will require a dramatic increase in affordable housing, economic support to help them afford this housing, and dedicated efforts to navigate a challenging housing market and to enforce anti-discrimination laws,” Ponder said in a statement introducing the report.

The UC report and its call for more affordable housing and funding came after California voters narrowly passed Proposition 1, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s homelessness and mental health care reform measure. The $6.4 billion bond, which opponents conceded would likely pass by the slimmest majority, is slated to boost housing production and provide more treatment beds.

But the state Legislative Analyst’s Office says the number of housing units the bond would build would shrink statewide homelessness “by only a small amount” while mental health advocates were skeptical that the measure will have any effect on the state’s homeless crisis in the long term.

The obstacles to housing, employment, income and health care that Black Californians have historically faced are also among the pathways to homelessness, the UCSF researchers say. Their report paints a grim picture.

Eight in 10 were previously housed but struggled to afford to stay in their homes. California’s median monthly rent is $1,600 a month, according to the report, but the median income for those with leases was just $1,200 a month; and even less for those who didn’t sign a lease — just $960 a month.

That same number said high housing costs were the main barrier to return to housing, the researchers said.

The challenges are even greater — 51% of those surveyed said discrimination was a roadblock to finding housing, compared to 31% of white Californians who are homeless; while 60% said housing shortages and the waitlists to get into affordable housing were also barriers.

The economic struggles that contribute to the number of Black Californians experiencing homelessness extend into the larger Black community.

About four in 10 Black families own homes in the state, according to the California Housing Finance Agency. That rate has stayed roughly the same since the 1960s, even with decades of law in place to combat housing discrimination, and is far less than that of white, Asian and Latino homeowners.

“A throughline runs between the policies of redlining, segregation, and disinvestment to the disproportionate representation of Black Americans in today’s homeless population,” says the report.

Help for Black first-time homebuyers and mortgage assistance for homeowners to help narrow the gulf in homeownership in the state are among reparations bills introduced in February to undo the legacy of racial inequity in California.

Black renters are more likely to spend 30% or more of their household income on rent, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

For Black Californians in the survey who held leases before they became homeless, that amount rose to more than half of their median household income. Those surveyed said changes in work and pay affected their ability to keep up with housing costs.

In the Sacramento region, nearly seven in 10 Black residents said they struggled to afford mortgages or rent, according to Sacramento think tank Valley Vision.

Federal, state and local leaders and housing advocates have long connected homelessness to the dearth of affordable housing.

In Los Angeles County, officials say nearly 500,000 new affordable homes are needed to meet the demand of renters at or below half of the area’s median income.

The National Low-Income Housing Coalition estimates 11 million extremely low-income households in the U.S. pay at least half of their income toward housing, putting them at risk of losing their homes if they fall ill or lose their job.

And in Sacramento County, 81% of extremely low-income households are paying more than half of their income on housing costs, according to the California Housing Partnership.

But for Black Californians, the pathway to homelessness is not solely economic. Many in the UC study reported serious mental health symptoms or hospitalizations or suicide attempts in their pasts, the result of physical or sexual abuse, systemic racism, incarceration or other traumas.

Black Californians who are homeless reported attempted suicide at a higher rate than the sample as a whole. That points to the “devastating effects of experiencing structural and individual traumas while also lacking adequate mental health care,” according to the report.

That, too, parallels the crisis in Black mental health brought by the combined weight of generational trauma, structural anti-Black racism, police violence and other factors.

In California, three in 10 Black women responding to a California Health Care Foundation study on Black Californians and mental health in August, reported mental health conditions. That number was lower for Black men, at about 20%, but many more Black men fail to report their symptoms, researchers say.

Nationally, the crisis has become increasingly deadly. Suicide has become the third leading cause of death for Black male teens and young adults, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with Black men and boys accounting for more than 80% of suicides among African Americans.

But homeless Black Californians who participated in the UCSF study remained hopeful that more navigation help to find and apply for housing, as well as housing vouchers or a small monthly subsidy could help move them out of homelessness, the researchers said.

“The situation for unhoused Black Californians is dire, but it is not insurmountable,” said Tiana Moore, the report’s co-author.

“In the long term, we must recognize and reduce the many factors that impede their search for a permanent home,” Moore said. “In the short term, even modest financial support could help stave off their homelessness.”